


El Cerrito Place

by dilangley



Series: El Cerrito Place [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Big Bang Challenge, Community: het_bigbang, Episode 5.02, Eventual Smut, F/M, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - Freeform, POV Dean Winchester, Post-Episode 7.04, Romance Dean Winchester-style, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-10 16:41:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 40,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7852972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilangley/pseuds/dilangley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's world is a mess when the Egyptian goddess of justice sends him back to 2009. He has another chance to stop the Apocalypse -- without the casualties, without the fallout, without an explosion in a hardware store. If he uses what he knows, he can save the people he loves, but saving Jo Harvelle has the unexpected price tag of falling in love with her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This fic begins in Episode 7.04 "Defending Your Life" and then moves to Episode 5.02 "Good God Y'all."
> 
> The title and chapter titles are from the song "El Cerrito Place."
> 
> The cover art for this fic can be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Het_Big_Little_Bang_Challenge_2016/works/7897057). Thank you, kuwlshadow!

She watched him at the bar, nursing a whiskey and pretending not to feel a damn thing.

Human stubbornness could be admirable at times. She flipped through the book in front of her, disguised as a magazine, and looked for his name in the cosmic file: Dean Winchester. The list of his missteps and poor decisions outranked even the list of deaths at his hands. This one was no ordinary human.

Ma’at wore mortal skin today. The Egyptian goddess of truth and justice revealed her heritage in only an ankh around her neck and a white feather in her dark hair. She missed fertile black earth, whispering sands, and true civilization.

Something of her stature had no place being in Dearborn, Michigan, but she had followed her errant brother across the globe. Osiris ruled as the god of transition, a being lesser than herself, and his role was only to lead the Weighing of the Heart when she was not able to do so. He had forgotten the Old Ways, and his bastardization of her ritual boiled her blood. Ghosts tethered to the afterlife ceremony, witnesses at the trial, internal guilt standing heavier than the eyes of Law… She had planned to kill him when she caught him, and discovering that he had been laid to rest for the next hundred years had stalled his punishment.

Now she needed to right his wrongs. The task challenged her, for most of those wronged were dead. Toying with the Afterlife was never easy.

She read another page of the book and saw outlined there all that Osiris must have seen when choosing Dean for the trial. There were so many names on the list, so many tangled snarls of culpability that it was hard to conceive which one could be most troubling this mortal.

Ma’at spared a glance at his stooped shoulders. She thought of Hathor’s timeless dance -- the love of a woman -- and turned the pages of the book. The list of names etched there was surprisingly small: Cassie, Jo, Lisa. She read the glyphs carefully. Cassie and Lisa were alive.

If she could touch his hand, she would see his heart and know all.

Slipping off the barstool, she approached. “Hello, stranger.”

Dean turned and gave her a tired once-over. “Hey.”

“May I have this seat?”

He shrugged. “It’s not taken.”

“Give a lady a hand?” She extended her slim fingers towards him. Watching confusion temporarily replace the weariness on his face almost made her smile. Gentlemanly gestures were so lost these days; they had been something she had very much enjoyed about the 1900s A.D.

Some measure of chivalry won out though, and he gripped her hand to steady her as she lifted onto the barstool.

The memories etched on his heart flooded into her, and she touched each one, taking its essence and finding the reason it belonged to his dearest place. Within seconds, she knew him better than he knew himself. Her curiosity was still piqued. She longed for a different era when she could have placed his heart on her scale, for she did not know which way he would tip. The old gods had lost the world and now had little more than parlor tricks at their disposal.

“Thank you.” Ma’at did not motion to the bartender for a drink. “What brings you here tonight?”

Dean looked down at his glass, shrugged a little. She now knew the gesture to be uncharacteristic. As a beautiful woman, she should have been on the receiving end of a killer smile and an eye-rake.

“Just having a drink.”

She reexamined the memories and touched again the profound sadness and regret surrounding Jo. Osiris had tethered Jo’s ghost and tried to make her kill Dean a few hours before, but that was not what was aching Dean’s heart. He felt responsible for Jo’s death. He had weighed his actions against possibilities and found himself guilty. Osiris had taken this latent pain and dragged sharp claws along it. The fiery explosion Dean had suppressed -- had even stopped having nightmares about -- was once again replaying inside of him.

Osiris had taken on her immortal task and used it to create pain for mortals. The Weighing was meant to be the ultimate closure, and instead, this human lay broken on the other side of it.

She could fix this.

“You’re thinking about Jo Harvelle and wondering how you could have prevented her death.”

He tensed and turned to her with wide eyes. “How the hell do you--”

He fumbled in his coat, obviously looking for a weapon of some sort. She shook her head and reached into her wellspring of magic within, lifting its feathery power and extending it to the human across from her. When she flicked her fingers forward, the invisible strands did their job. He quieted, preternatural calm settling over his body and mind. She felt the peace drape over him like a blanket.

It was the state of Honesty and Calm in which the final judgment should have been presented, but she was breaking the rules of her magic tonight.

“I am Ma’at, the true goddess of Truth and Justice. My brother, Osiris, had no place to judge you earlier. Only I can cast the final weighing, and only when it is your time to die. We do not kill.”

“I’m probably an exception to the rule. When it comes to death, I’ve been there, done that. Besides,” Dean paused. “Your brother wasn’t wrong. I am guilty.”

“Are you guilty because Jo died?”

“Well, Jo and Ellen, sure. But Cas fell because of me and then screwed up royally, Sam had to jump into the cage with Lucifer and is now a half bubble off plumb, and I dragged Lisa and Ben into my world, and I knew better. I'm plenty guilty.”

“How?”

Even in the state of peace, he seemed surprised by the question.

“Because I’m supposed to take care of everyone. That’s why Jo was going to kill me, you know. She was my responsibility. Sam was too, but with the demon blood and all of that, I was up against a lot. But Jo was just a normal kid when I met her, just bartending at the family business. I let her get involved in hunting, and before you know it, she’s dying bloody hunting the devil. All for nothing.”

“You stopped the Apocalypse.”

“Jo dying didn’t have anything to do with that.”

“Could you fix it?”

Again, she had surprised him. He thought for a long moment. 

“Knowing what I know now? Yeah. I could fix it.”

Ma’at looked at him, so limited by mortality that it had never occurred to him to try. Heh and Hauhet forbade humans or other gods from affecting the infinity, but so many rules had already been broken tonight. She had not seen the rulers of time in many hundreds of years, so she doubted they would appear now to punish her for one minor manipulation.

She reached out to take Dean Winchester’s hand again and sent him to his second chance. As she moved the strands of time, she could hear its sound, almost like the whispers of sand she missed.

Her brother had not been wrong in wanting to be useful to humanity again. She watched Dean disappear and wished him luck.


	2. Hangin' around this place

Dean lifted the beer he first opened three years ago to his lips, and it was still cold.

His life hadn’t consisted of much picnic table sitting, and he had recognized the location where he had been dropped immediately. He was at a campground pavilion in River Pass, Colorado, and if he reached in his pocket right now… He did so and pulled out War’s ring. He twirled it in his fingers and then pocketed it again.

Ma’at had sloughed him back where he and Sam had found Rufus, Ellen, and Jo fighting the first Mac Daddy of the Apocalypse; luckily the goddess had the good sense to drop him after the fight. He remembered the first time he sat here. Sam had just confessed he could no longer hunt, and like a damn fool, Dean had let him go, watched him hitchhike away as if there was a such thing as a break from watching Sammy. The first time Dean had sat at this picnic table, he had been scared to death about the impending Apocalypse. Lucifer was loose, Castiel was looking for God, and Sam was still jonesing for demon blood.

Now he was thinking about the future the freakin’ Egyptian goddess had jerked him away from. Cas freed Leviathans, broke Sam’s head, and then died, and he had no way of going more than two hours without drinking liquor. He’d been trying to hide that -- just like he’d been trying to hide a lot of other things from Sam, like how he’d killed his monster-buddy, Amy. But Dean knew he was about to graduate from the John Winchester School of Drinking. The markers were all there: the pale face, the dark circles, the creeping flaccidity of his body.

He reached down under his coat and pinched his own side. No flesh pulled away from the taut frame. Ma’at had put him back in his 2009 body, which had been a little leaner and meaner than the one he packed today.

Dean squinted up at the sun and tried to decide if he should be panicking. Should he be praying to Castiel for help to get him back to the present? Was Sam going to be scrambling everywhere, looking for him?

Instead of panic, he still felt the edges of that artificial calm the goddess had laid on him. It was like really good dope; it had settled him right out.

Maybe instead of panicking and trying to get home, he should use this opportunity to fix everything. Knowing what he knew now, he could change so much. Maybe he could even protect all the people he loved from all the bad shit coming their way. Maybe he could keep Sam out of the cage, keep Cas from going off the rails, keep Ellen and Jo from being anywhere near Lucifer, keep himself from mixing Lisa and Ben up in everything… He had a whole lot he could fix.

Maybe.

That one stupid, hopeful little word galvanized him, and he stood up. If 2009-Dean had been sent forward to see Leviathans, a broken Sam, and a dead Cas, he would have done anything to come back here and change that future. There was no reason he couldn’t do the same thing.

A tinny sound rang from his pocket, and he reached in to pull out a flip phone. Ellen Harvelle’s name flashed on the pixelated screen. He tried to remember what Ellen had called about after the demon business in River Pass, tried to remember if this phone answered automatically if you opened it or if you had to press a button.

“Funny what we forget,” he muttered as he flipped it open and put it to his ear. “Hey Ellen.”

“Boy, I know you didn’t think you were just going to leave without telling me what the hell just happened.”

His intestines actually clenched inside of him at the sound of her voice. That voice, so brusque and no-nonsense, could not cover its own affection and concern. In the middle of the Apocalypse, she was checking on him as much as she was trying to help him save the world.

Dean remembered now that he had blown Ellen off the first time they had this conversation. His brain had been racing, and he had been trying to ignore the growing black hole inside him, the darkness that always filled him when Sam was gone. This time, he tried a different approach.

“I’m not going anywhere yet. I just had to see Sam off. Then I was planning on coming back into town to check in with you.”

“Where’s Sam headed?”

“Just needs a little air.”

“I saw the way he acted scared of his own shadow. You’re making the right call giving him a little break,” Ellen said. She paused for a second, coughing a smoker’s rattle, and then continued, “So why don’t you head back into town and meet us at Dirk’s? It’s a bar and grill at the end of Main Street. Pretty good burgers and a round on me.”

In 2009, he would have said no. Today, he tried another approach.

“See you there.”

He hung up and walked back to his Impala. Running his hand along the hood, he noticed his ring catching the light. It had only been a couple years since he had taken it off, tired of cutting himself opening beer bottles and getting it snagged during grave digging, but he felt like a different person. He barely knew the man who had worn his mother’s resized wedding ring to stay connected to her. Much like the tribal charms and bracelets he used to wear, it had stopped having any metaphorical magic for him with every passing year. Hope really didn’t spring eternal.

He got into the Impala and tried not to think about the other half of that “us” Ellen had just used. He was very used to trying not to think about Jo.

In the year after losing Sam, he had woken up in the middle of the night every night with a different fear, a different name on his lips. Most often, it was Sam’s, and then he could talk to Lisa, who woke up with a mother’s intuition at the slightest disturbance. She would listen, hug, soothe, and sometimes screw, whatever it took to get him back on his feet for the day.

When it had been Jo’s name on his lips, though, he had told Lisa to go back to bed, walked downstairs, and poured himself a drink. He’d watched more than a few sunrises thinking about her and reliving the day he failed her. When the hellhound had gotten hold of him that day, his fear had been enough to loosen his bowels because he knew just how unbelievable the pain was about to be. He had known Hell before.

Jo, too ignorant and reckless to be afraid enough, had charged back to save him instead of running. She had charged backwards before his own brother had been able to force himself to turn around. And in that moment of courage, she had traded her life for his, whether she meant to or not. He had relived her death so often that he could tell it down to the last detail, from the temperature of her clammy hand on the detonator to the smell of burnt rubber and chemicals after the explosion.

He hadn’t needed Osiris to tell him he was responsible for Jo’s death, and seeing her ghost -- if that had even really been her ghost -- couldn’t change that. About the only thing that could change it was not letting it happen again.

He drove across town, cranking up the Black Sabbath in the tape deck. Main Street looked different than it had a few hours ago -- or from Dean’s perspective, a few hours and a few years ago. People were starting to emerge from the nightmare and try to find life. He saw a couple walking together, clinging tightly to one another’s hands. He saw a group of men with trash bags, picking up refuse along the sidewalks. These people were going to move on; they were going to bury their dead and wonder how to find normal in a world that could never believe what they had been through.

If Dean knew anything about people, he knew that on a night like that, the local bar would be packed.

He pulled a left into the parking lot behind the neon sign that glowed “D_rk’s” and almost chuckled. Could it be a small-town dive if it didn’t have letters out on the sign? Did the owners actually buy them that way just to make sure patrons knew they were welcome in their work boots and flannel?

Sure enough, he was right about Dirk’s being busy. He recognized survivors from both fronts of the misguided war, and several people recognized him right back. He got claps on the shoulder, a couple thanks, two promises for beers-on-them and one inquiry about his brother before he made his way to the bar. The woman behind it had a rack on display that made his inner twelve-year-old jump for joy, but when she spotted him, she didn’t smile.

“Hi.” He tried his charming voice. “I’m looking for Ellen and Jo.”

“There’s no Ellen or Jo working here,” she said, raising both eyebrows. 

“Ellen and Jo were rallying the troops around here this week,” he replied. “Thought they might be local celebrities since I was getting high fives and have been here less than 24 hours.”

“I was hiding under my bar most of the last week and a half.” She shot him a look that dared him to criticize that. Then she picked up a rag and started aggressively wiping glasses. Dean figured it was not a good time to point out that the semi-clean rag was for wiping the bar, not the glasses.

“Are you Dirk?” The question popped out before he could stop it. She looked at him for five long seconds, and he watched her face smooth over when she realized he was not about to bust her chops for not picking up a weapon and facing down demons.

“My father was Dirk. I’m Meredith.” The smile he had expected when he first approached appeared now.

“Hi Meredith,” he said. He turned on his charmer’s smile. “It was great of you to open up and give everybody a place to drink tonight. Have you seen a redheaded woman, early 40s, and a blonde, early 20s, who you don’t know?”

Meredith nodded. “Yeah. They took a booth over there in the back. Bought a bottle of whiskey and ordered three bacon cheeseburgers.”

“My girls,” Dean mumbled approvingly under his breath before saying, “Thank you, Meredith.”

“No problem. I’ll be here all night.” He did not imagine the flirty wink she tossed his way. He headed to the back of the room. When he spotted the booth, he saw Ellen facing out, two backpacks stacked in the seat beside her. She was wearing an old button-down that had to have belonged to her late husband, and she was smiling as she talked to the other side of the booth.

His feet felt heavy as lead. He swallowed hard before taking the last couple steps needed to reach them.

“You stupid or something? Get over here and take a seat, boy,” Ellen greeted. She seemed oblivious to the fact that he could not make himself turn his head to look at Jo. If he saw her, he was scared of what his face would reveal and even more scared of what his insides would do. He stood still a beat too long.

“You can pull up a chair if you’d rather.”

Jo’s voice tugged at some invisible strings inside of him, and he turned to look at her. He had remembered her prettier than she actually was. A crown of frizz framed her pale face, and her features were narrower and sharper than he remembered, her lips slimmer, her eyes smaller. His memory could not have conjured up that look she gave him now, though, lips curving up at the corner and brown eyes twinkling a little. She tilted her head sideways, giving him a slightly amused and confused expression. He shook his head to clear out the thoughts he didn’t have time to deal with.

“Jo.” He let her name be a greeting and heeded her suggestion that he pull up a chair rather than squish into the booth beside her. He pulled it up backwards and settled on it, putting his arms on the back. Stupid as it sounded, it felt good just to look at the two women in front of him. They were alive, Cas was alive, and Sam would detox from demon blood before you knew it. This year was better in retrospect.

“How about we swap some stories and drink some whiskey?” Dean reached for a shot glass and tipped the bottle over to fill it up.

“Only if you start. What’s going on out there?” Ellen pushed her glass towards him. He filled it up too and then reached over for Jo’s. She might as well get ready to knock some back too. If he was going to keep them from wondering why the heck he wasn’t more bedraggled and hopeless, they were going to have to drink like it was the end of the world or something.

And drink and swap stories they did. Over the next two hours, they ignored the rest of the bar; its patrons moved from quietly processing their ordeal to celebrating still being alive.

Dean offered honesty he would have ordinarily denied, talking frankly about needing to help Sam kick his addiction and about Bobby’s recovery and adjusting to a wheelchair. Ellen approved in a blunt, straightforward way. She nodded along with his statements and told her own stories, explaining how she and Jo had been taking on demons together for the last couple months. Jo spoke up more than she used to around her mom, less self-conscious, not a kid evading a parent anymore but a young woman who could have camaraderie with her mother. She also destroyed her burger and knocked back her whiskey with the ease of any hunter, man or woman.

Dean felt a strange sense of pride settle into his bones. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t taken the time the first time around to see the kid had grown up. He had been too busy watching his little brother back then, also refusing to see that Sam was grown up. Until he had seen his brother take on the Devil and win, Dean had still been raising Sammy.

Under the pride, something else ran through him: an awareness of how she looked at him. Osiris has referred to her feelings for him, and she had flinched, not wanting to risk making Dean guilty in trial. But Dean had always known she harbored a crush. If pressed, he might have even said “What’s not to like?” about himself with a cocky grin. Since her death, he had seen it the way he first had -- a girl putting music on the jukebox and making eyes at him -- and had conveniently forgotten that same girl putting a shotgun in his back and shooting down his pickup lines. Her eyes sparkled his way, but her tongue cut quick and her sass rivaled anyone’s. There was no hero worship here, and that thought changed the way he had framed her in his mind. 

Apparently John Winchester’s drinking wasn’t the only thing he had inherited; he also came by the revisionist history gene too. 

“So you think you can beat this thing because you’ve got a Horseman’s ring in your pocket and six shots of whiskey in your veins?” Ellen was saying. Dean nodded, half-smiling as he thought of the three years worth of knowledge and motivation he couldn’t mention.

“Oh, don’t forget an 80’s tape collection and a whole lot of flannel shirts,” Jo added. Though she was speaking to her mother, she had her eyes on him, and the healthy, red-blooded appreciation in that gaze kicked up his pulse. Jo knocked back another shot, and Dean glanced over to see Ellen seeing just exactly that. He realized he had scooted all the way up to the table and was leaning toward Jo’s side. He pushed his chair back an inch or two

“And a GED and a give-’em-hell attitude,” he continued. He didn’t smile as he went on, “But yeah, we’re going to beat this thing. Not tonight. But we’re going to.”

“You Winchesters always seem to find a way.” Ellen nodded. She slid across the booth and stood up. “Alright, Jo. Let’s get out of here before they cut up that damn country music any louder. I need some shut eye.”

Dean looked over at Jo and saw her face fall. She tried not to look at him, but he knew she wasn’t ready to go. She had missed him -- hadn’t really seen him in a real long time -- and God knows, though Jo certainly didn’t, he had missed her in ways she couldn’t imagine. He wasn’t quite ready to let her out of his sight for fear that this living Jo would be replaced again by all those dark memories.

He was half-afraid if he stopped looking at her, he would be back in the motel room while her ghost held a lighter over the gas.

Just when he was about to open his mouth and suggest she stay, she turned to her mother.

“I’m going to hang with Dean a little longer, Mom. We’re going to catch up.”

Ellen frowned. “We just did.”

Jo ignored the warning in Ellen’s voice. “I’ll catch a ride back to the motel. It’s just outside of town.”

They stared each other down, protective mother bear versus precocious cub. Dean felt an unfortunate surge of jealousy; his parents had never gotten the chance to try their hands at basic parenting crap like this. No one had ever told him he couldn’t stay out late and have a few more drinks.

Kicking himself for daring to get in the middle, he said, “I’d be happy to give you a ride.”

Jo smiled at him with enough gratitude to undo his concern at the vein pulsing on Ellen’s temple. She reached over, fingers ghost-light, and touched his hand. He jolted.

“Fine. You’re a grown woman, Joanna Beth, and you can stay out drinking with a man if you want.” Ellen dragged those words out with enough hot sarcasm to burn a match.

“Not like that, Mom.” Jo sounded slightly embarrassed.

“Yeah, not like that, Mom,” Dean muttered, earning himself a smack upside his head.

“Don’t sass me, Dean Winchester. She’d better be in our motel room, safe and sound, by morning, y’hear me?”

He nodded. “I won’t let anything happen to her.”

The words felt good coming out of his mouth, and he prayed he could make them true long-term. Ellen left without goodbyes, though she gave Jo’s hair an affectionate tousle before paying at the bar and leaving.

Uncomfortable silence descended at the table. Dean considered a few different fronts for conversation, but nothing came to mind. They’d already crash-coursed the Apocalypse, caught up on mutual friends. Jo seemed equally at a loss. They sipped rather than shot back their whiskey now, and Dean tried to pretend he wasn’t hearing Willie Nelson on the jukebox. The distinctive nasally whine made him want to shoot out the nearest speaker.

“Favorite song?” Jo broke the silence. Her voice blurred the words together just enough to reveal her buzz.

“What?”

“What’s your favorite song?” Jo leaned on the table, elbows first. “I was going to start by telling you mine, but I’m stuck between two, so you’ll have to go first.”

“What the hell?”

“I’m making conversation, Dean. Damn it. Just answer the question. If we don’t talk, I’m going to keep drinking, and I’m already not sure my legs will hold me if I try to stand up.”

Dean smothered a smile at the ridiculousness but considered the question. “It’s a tie. Do I have to pick one?”

“Yeah.” Her warm eyes twinkled at him. “Pick.”

“‘Ramble On,’ Led Zeppelin. You?”

“Not this shit.” She giggled and pointed to the ceiling speaker. Then she seemed to really consider the question. “I really can’t decide. Do I have to pick one?”

He didn’t know why her repeating his exact question made him smile, but she touched his hand again as she asked. The pressure of her fingers on his barely registered, though, because at that exact moment, she reached up to rub the side of her neck, hair falling back to reveal a length of milky-white skin. The heat shot through him as he wondered what would happen if he leaned in and kissed her, right there above her collarbone. 

He jerked his hand away from her and buried that thought.

“No. Tell me both.”

“Well, my daddy used to play ‘The Weight’ a lot. Y’know, ‘take a load off, Fanny’? He could play it on guitar, and he’d put it on in the Roadhouse and spin Mom around.” She paused and ran a finger through a drop of whiskey on the table.

“And I love ‘Burnin’ for You’ too.” She leaned towards him, and the whiskey in his veins whispered to him that she smelled good. “No good story for that one.”

“Blue Oyster Cult’s just that good,” he said.

“Blue Oyster Cult’s just that good,” she agreed. That smile slipped back onto her face, and he looked at the empty glasses, the mostly empty bottle of Evan Williams, and back to her. A bad idea tickled at him, the kind of idea born out of alcohol and longing and relief and a whole other mix of emotions. Somewhere a couple years from now, an Egyptian goddess probably thought he was saving the world, but instead, he stood up.

“I’m going to go take a piss,” he said. He got up and went to the bathroom to do just that, but when he got out, he let his bad idea lead the way to the jukebox. A place like this had to have The Band on tap. He rummaged through the pockets of his cargo jacket and managed to come up with a quarter.

The opening notes of “The Weight” started as he got back to the booth. He stripped off his jacket and tossed it on top of her backpack. She gave him a confused look, pushing a chunk of blonde hair behind her ear. Instead of explaining, he held out his hand.

“It’s your favorite song, right?”

“Definitely top two.” She took his hand, and he tried not to feel whatever that damn smile of hers made him feel.

Dean had no idea what he was doing. He was not the kind of guy who put music on the jukebox and asked a girl to dance, no matter how much he’d had to drink. After all, he wasn’t a high school senior. Even as a high school senior, he hadn’t been someone to pull cheesy crap like this. But she had been sitting there, looking at him like he hung the freakin’ moon, and he had just known he could make her smile like that if he did something stupid like this.

He pulled her out onto the makeshift dance floor where other couples had been dancing badly all night and ignored the fact that he was a terrible dancer. One hand on her waist, the other wrapped around hers, he let them fall into the rhythm of the song. She let him have the position for a few seconds before correcting his hand, sliding it from waist to hip, and grinning at him.

“We can be a little less formal.” 

As they danced, she began to sing, murmuring along with every word of the song. She knew words he didn’t, and he really listened to the words themselves for the first time. Hearing it in her voice gave it a meaning he had never heard in it before.

_“Well, Luke, my friend, what about young Anna Lee?”  
He said, “Do me a favor, son. Won’t you stay and keep Anna Lee company?”_

Dean wondered if she thought she was singing to him, asking him to let her carry part of the load. He remembered when Sam had been possessed. After being held hostage and digging a bullet out of Dean’s arm, Jo had still asked to come help him find his brother, and he had blown her off. Leaving her behind had been smart, but he knew it had hurt her. He knew how she felt about him, then and probably now, and he knew that dancing with her like this was not helping. But then he felt the warmth of her pressed against him, smelled the citrusy tang of her hair, and he knew he wasn’t about to let her go just on principle.

The song ended, and the Jukebox went back to country, kicking up some hard-drinkin’ George Strait song he had never heard before. Her fingers tightened around his hand, and she leaned into him, female softness against male hardness. For a second, he had to remind himself that she was Jo Harvelle and not someone he needed to be putting any moves on.

“You want to go sit back down?” He asked

“Are you kidding? This is my third favorite song.” Her mouth quirked at the corner, and he chuckled.

“Sing it to me then. If you like it so much, you must know the words,” he teased, just to keep her in his arms a little longer. Maybe he was lonely, maybe he just needed a few minutes with a skin-mag to get all this out of his system, or maybe she really did feel just right tucked in against him.

Jo obliged, spinning out lyrics involving cowboys, dead dogs, boots, tight jeans, beer, and every other country cliche she could think of. She drew out the vowel in her closing “y’all” so long that she turned his smile into a laugh. By the time the song ended, the alcohol she’d downed had taken full effect, and she had that sweet drunken clumsiness starting to kick in. She let him keep a hold of her hand to steady her as they walked back to the booth and sat down.

“I probably shouldn’t let you have another drink,” he said. “You’ll want to sleep with me.”

If he expected his comment to create a pretty blush and some stammering, he was barking up the wrong tree. Instead, she met his teasing head-on, honed from years of bartending.

“I’ll risk it.” She grinned and grabbed the bottle of whiskey. “You’ve been wanting to sleep with me for years, so the worst this whiskey can do is make us break even.”

“Oh really? You’re really going to pretend you don’t want to sleep with me too?” He cussed himself up and down internally, knowing all too well that Jo was not going to miss that last word. Both of her eyebrows shot up, and she bit down on her lower lip, trying not to laugh at him. He ignored the images that shot through him.

“Too? I rest my case.” Her smile faded away, and she looked down at the scant amber liquid in the bottle. “Now if you’ll stop being judgmental, I’m going to have one last shot because it feels good to forget these last few days ever happened.”

She put the bottle to her lips and knocked back the rest of the whiskey. She put it down slowly and propped her elbows on the table, putting her chin on her hands. Dean reached into his pocket for his keys. If the drowsy quiet settling over Jo was any indication, he would be taking her home in just a minute. Drunkenness had a way of tipping from fun to melancholy in an instant. The change in her brought about an equal change in him. He went from trying not to notice her legs in those tight jeans to trying not to reach out and pull her into his chest where he could keep her safe.

Again, he acted on neither one. He wasn’t here for this. The best way to keep her safe was to stay focused on the business at hand.

“It’s been awful here, Dean,” she said, her voice so quiet now he had to lean closer to hear her. “I mean, I’ve been hunting for a while now -- demons even, not just ghosts and shit -- but these weren’t demons and hunters squaring off. These were regular people trying to figure out what to do to stop demons, and they were killing each other. And that was bad enough. But now…”

Jo grimaced and rubbed her hands over her face.

“Now I know they were just shooting their friends and neighbors. I watched a man slit his neighbor’s throat, and now I know there was no demon in there. That’s what an Apocalypse looks like, isn’t it? It’s not demons and Hell. It’s just chaos.”

Dean remembered what loomed ahead of them if he could not stop it. Famine and Pestilence turned people into monsters, slaves to impulse and victims of disease. Angels and demons alike would die inside of powerless human vessels. He himself would create a bomb to blow up the woman sitting in front of him. Chaos wasn’t a bad word for what he had seen.

The stark image of 2014 as Zachariah had shown it to him bubbled back up. He supposed that future was back on the table again now that he was back in 2009. That had also been chaos. Jo understood Apocalypse better than most people who had lived it.

He twirled a shot glass on the table and tried to figure out what he was supposed to say to her. Practicality seemed like the way to go.

“You having nightmares?” He asked.

“No.” He waited her out, and she finally shook her head. “I’m not having nightmares because I can’t sleep.”

He knew what it felt like to sit awake, battling all the shit you’d seen in your own head, the one place you had no chance of beating it. This time, he reached over to touch her hand as if somehow that could offer some sort of antidote.

“Tonight might be different. You’ve had a lot to drink, and it’s over for now.”

“Nothing’s over, Dean. We’ve faced down one of the four Horsemen, and we barely got lucky enough to get out of that one alive.”

Now he did know what to say. “Listen, Jo. You work one case at a time. You’ve been working a demon case in River Pass, Colorado. Turned out to be War. Doesn’t matter. Either way, you’ve cleared this case. Tomorrow you’re gonna pack up and hit the road again.”

“But…”

“No. Tonight’s the night to get your sleep. Don’t let a case that’s finished give you nightmares.” 

If that wasn’t the best damn advice he had ever given and never taken, he didn’t know what was.

“Do you ever have nightmares?”

He wanted to nod and tell her exactly what nightmares had kept him up at night the past couple years, but instead, he shook his head and pushed back his chair.

“No. Because I follow my own advice.” He stood up before she got smart enough to call him on his bullshit. “I’m going to go pay and then get you back to the motel.”

Dean walked across the bar to see Meredith still slinging shots and cleaning glasses. Her chest again deserved a second look, and he couldn’t resist peeking down as he caught her attention. Everyone seemed to have gotten drunk enough now to forgive her not fighting with them, and if the overflowing tip jar was any indication, they had also gotten drunk enough to lose interest in material wealth. Dirk’s was making a killing tonight.

“Hey Meredith. I’m ready to close out.” He flashed her his characteristic smile, and she smiled back. She grabbed his bar slip and motioned him down to the register. Glancing back at Jo to make sure she was okay, he followed to see Meredith punching numbers into the register.

“Y’know I was hoping she was your little sister when you first went over there to sit down earlier.” Meredith didn’t look up as she accepted his credit card -- a Mr. James Reston -- and swiped it through the machine.

“Yeah?” The word came out as more of a noncommittal sound than actual question.

“Yeah. We don’t get many men as good-looking as you around here, and honestly, I enjoy being the cliche slutty bartender.” She slid him the receipt to sign, and her eyes still held a question. Dean knew that if he wanted to, he could take her home tonight. Her offer was still sitting on the table. She might be expecting to be denied, but she wanted a yes. He scrawled out a sideways cursive-like blob on the receipt.

“She’s not my sister,” Dean started to deliver it like a line, getting ready to add a ‘but’ on the end of it. Then he looked back over at Jo. At the same moment, she looked over at him, and the contemplative expression on her face melted into something else. She gave him a tiny wave that said ‘Whatcha looking at?’, but the smile that appeared had no guile. He turned back to Meredith and shrugged, taking away his line.

“Guess not,” Meredith put the receipt in the cash register and handed him his copy. “Thanks for coming in tonight, James.”

“It was nice meeting you, Meredith.”

He walked back over to the booth. It was amazing the difference ten minutes and one more shot of whiskey could make in a person. Jo’s eyes had gotten glassier, her smile looser, and when he got close enough, she reached out to touch his arm, pulling herself up. When she rose, she fumbled. His childhood training kicked in, and he braced himself to catch the weight of a drunk, but Jo weighed a lot less than John Winchester. She folded against his side, head resting somewhere between armpit and chest. His arm fit around her so naturally and easily he hardly realized he had moved it.

“There you go. I’ve got you,” he said, reaching down with the other hand to grab their coats and her backpack.

“I didn’t suddenly become five because I’ve had too much to drink. My legs are just the first thing to give out on me.” She sounded petulant, and he stifled a laugh as he glanced down at her watching her own feet stumble. Her drunken state had tipped again from melancholy back to funny. Maybe not funny to her, he would admit, but amusing for him.

“I’m sorry for treating you like a kid, big girl. You want me to let you walk on your own?” He half-carried her to the door and resisted the urge to let go of her. She giggled.

“No, I kinda want you to carry me instead.” She turned her nose sideways into his chest and breathed in. “You smell good.”

“I probably smell like sweat.”

She shook her head, nose still pressed into his chest. “You smell like sweat and deodorant and maybe some blood.”

“World’s best cologne,” Dean muttered to himself. She didn’t hear him, and he guided her out to the Impala. She managed to open the door and slide into the seat on her own, and that would have been good enough for him except that she started fumbling above her right shoulder.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for the seatbelt.” She turned her head now to look up at the corner in agitation.

Dean shook his head. “Damn it, woman. This is a car, not a pansy-wagon. I’m not going to crash.”

“I always wear my seatbelt because cars are a stupid way to die.”

“You’re a… stupid way to die,” Dean groused under his breath but reached over her to grab the lapbelt clip and put it in her hand. He spoke louder now so that she could actually hear him. “Go crazy. Here’s the seatbelt.”

She fumbled to put it in. Being drunk and working by the dim light of a street lamp a few yards away was not a winning combination. He watched her biting her lower lip, wearing the soft flesh out in her teeth, and a surge of heat shot through him for about the hundredth time that night. She was killing him with this lip-biting habit.

Once she had successfully buckled, he was grateful to shut the door and walk through the brisk air to the other side of the car. It was bad enough he had just lost track of time and spent hours drinking and dancing with her; he didn’t need to lose sight of what mattered.

He got behind the wheel and started her up, listening to his engine purr. In 2009, his last Impala rebuild wasn’t that far behind him, and she sounded good. He backed out of the parking space and started driving. He had seen the town’s only motel, just outside of the limits, on his way in earlier. Vacancy probably wouldn’t be a problem under the circumstances, especially since he only needed a single. He wondered where Sam had gone that night, the first one, because wherever it had been, that was where he was now.

Though it was only a few miles, Jo slept for most of it. Dean realized she had fallen asleep against the window when he heard the first small snuffles of her snoring. Her sleep sounds had nothing on the bear-like cacophony his brother could create from the passenger seat, but the sight of her face pressed against the window, mouth a little open and hair mussed around her face, sent the same spread of warmth across his chest. He cut the radio on low.

He hooked a right at the motel sign. The glowing beacon had all of its letters, but otherwise fulfilled all the expectations of a cheap, small town hotel. Overgrown bushes replaced what was probably meant to be landscaping, and old beer cans littered the parking lot. Ellen’s battered pickup truck matched the general aesthetic. He pulled in beside it and put his Impala in park.

Jo let out a snore that sounded more like a snort. He reached over to touch her arm, and she turned towards him without opening her eyes. The radio kicked up the first notes of The Rolling Stone’s “Wild Horses,” and Jo smiled drowsily.

“I love this song,” she mumbled.

“You love a lot of songs, Pamela Des Barres,” he replied. “We’re here. Can you walk yourself inside?”

“If I say no, will you help me?” The crooked smile that accompanied her words turned them from flirty to funny, and he found himself nodding even though her eyes were closed.

“I’ll help you either way. Hang on.”

He cut the radio off just as the Stones sang “You know I can’t let you slide through my hands” and walked around the other side. Jo grabbed onto his arm and pulled herself up, giving him another lecture on how she was a mature adult and not a child even as she refused to pull out her room key.

“I’ve hidden it somewhere very mysterious,” she crooned.

“Real mature, Jo.” He fished in the pocket of her jacket and found it immediately. “You’ve got to walk in here yourself or your mother is going to kill me. Saving you from demons isn’t going to matter if she realizes how drunk I let you get.”

“I’m 24, Dean. You didn’t let me do anything.”

“I’m a decade older than you.”

“A decade? Quit being melodramatic.” She cocked her head back to look at him. “Have you even turned 30 yet?”

Dean realized his own mistake and covered with a laugh. “Whatever, kiddo. I’m the boss, and I say you’re going to have to walk in there by yourself.”

“No problem, boss.” She replied coyly, and just like that, his skin prickled. There was nothing like the mouth of a pretty girl calling you boss, even sarcastically. “I’ll see you in the morning. When you call me and let me know how we’re going to kick this Apocalypse in the ass.”

She turned the key in the door and let it open a crack. Calling her in the morning was a bad idea. No matter how much he thought she and Ellen might help, he knew he shouldn’t have her anywhere near this fight. He needed to keep her safe. “I’m not going to have your blood on my hands,” he had once told her, and this time, he wanted that to be a promise he kept.

“Call me in the morning, Dean?” She repeated it as a question, a hard edge creeping into her voice in spite of all the alcohol swimming in her system.

“Sure, Jo. I’ll call you in the morning.”

He didn’t mean it, and she didn’t look like she believed him as she walked inside and shut the door behind her.

Trying to push her out of his mind, he headed toward the front lobby to check himself in, so he could get started. He had a long night ahead of him, and it was already 1 a.m.


	3. All the places that you go

Red River Inn -- an ironically-named motel if ever there was one -- boasted a Business Center on its signage, which was lucky for Dean Winchester. Less lucky was the fact that the the Business Center was a single ancient desktop computer with dial-up in the corner of the lobby. Beggars can’t be choosers, though, and once Dean was done cursing himself for being too dumb to have his own laptop in 2009, he settled himself in in front of the computer and began to work.

Researching Ma’at was his first order of business. He tried all the keywords he could think of to check her out. Sam was the brother who did academic research for the joy of learning; he was more into trying to find quick answers, and no matter how many different web pages he pulled up, he could not find any evidence of “Ma’at screwing with people by sending them back in time.” None of the lore mentioned time travel, but neither did it mention her doing anything malicious. It seemed that her business really had been weighing the hearts of the newly dead and sending them to their just reward.

“So here’s to trusting her,” Dean had muttered before cutting the computer off and walking back to his room. When he turned the key, he wasn’t surprised to find the motel had the same awful flower bedspread of every other cheap motel in America. Almost like home sweet home.

He’d dropped his duffel bag on the bed, brushed his teeth, and then changed into the pair of old sweatpants he used to love and had lost sometime in 2011. They felt as worn and broken-in as he remembered, and he chalked them up as a plus to this whole situation.

The other plus sauntered through his mind wearing a green cargo jacket and a smile that left dents in both of her cheeks.

Finding a pad of notebook paper in the bag, he started to jot information down. The paper quickly became a sea of arrows and sideways notes as he tried to bring together his knowledge. He tried to write it all down, and every second, he wished Sam was there to help him remember this stuff. Where had they found Famine? Had it been Indiana or Oklahoma? Had they thought the Trickster was dead in 2009 or had they known the Trickster was still alive and just not known he was the archangel, Gabriel?

At 4 a.m., he cut on the TV and found an infomercial on some sort of pressure cooker just to let the background noise keep him awake.

Should they try to find Crowley and enlist him in the plan in order to have demon backing, or should he try to keep them from ever meeting Crowley to protect Cas from teaming up with him later on? Would Cas recognize that he was Future Dean and not actually the Dean from 2009? How was he going to convince anyone to listen to him without telling them how he knew this stuff? Telling them represented a time paradox, and he had seen enough crappy sci-fi movies to know that was bad.

He wanted to tell Sam. It had only been a few hours since he had seen his brother, and he already missed having him as a partner, someone in the exact same shit he was. Dean had no idea what he was going to say to Sam when he called him in the morning, but he didn’t see any upside to trying to explain the situation. He was on his own.

At 5 a.m., he had turned his rough doodlings into enough of a plan to take to Bobby and company. Exhausted, he sat down on the edge of the bed and tried Step One. He closed his eyes.

“Dear Castiel who art not in Heaven but flying somewhere around the American Midwest, I need you.”

He heard that familiar rustle, one that sounded almost like feathery wings drawing down. He opened one eye to see Cas standing in front of him. This version of the angel could not have known that he was just a few years -- milliseconds on the heavenly measure -- from killing hundreds of his brothers and sisters and dying himself in an explosion of primeval destruction. This version of the angel still had the stiffness of inhumanity. He was a few months out from shouting “Assbutt” and throwing a holy hand grenade at Michael, but at least he was alive.

“Hello Dean.”

Even though Dean had played out the conversation in his head, he fumbled a bit now.

“Cas, listen. We’ve got to take a sharp right from your whole plan to find God.”

Cas took a step towards him and narrowed his eyes. “You are different than you were yesterday.”

Dean stood up and nodded his head. Sometimes the best defense was a strong offense.

“Yeah, watching one of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse tear apart a town and nearly kill Rufus, Ellen, and Jo will do that to a person.”

Cas looked up with renewed interest. “Did you see the Horseman?”

War had presented as a middle-aged man. Never had a balding man with a slight paunch looked so evil. Like all of these big-time players in God’s immortal chess game, he had burned through a human to prove his point. Even Cas was just a winged creature inside of poor Jimmy Novak, a sap too stupid to know that believing in God was a giant letdown at best and a death sentence at worst.

“Kinda. It’s a long story, but I’ve got his ring,” Dean walked to the chair by the window, reached into his coat pocket, and pulled it out. He gave the ring to Cas who took it and turned it over, examining for something unseen. Dean wondered if it looked like more than a simple gold band to angelic eyes.

“In fact, not only do I have his ring, but I got some information out of him too,” Dean lied so smoothly that he would have believed himself if he had not known any better. Cas listened intently as Dean explained that War had mentioned only being afraid of one thing: Gabriel. Dean slid sideways into revealing the information, Hansel dropping breadcrumbs, until Castiel said,

“Perhaps Gabriel is somewhere on Earth. He has been missing for so long that many of us thought he was with our Father, but if War has mentioned him...” Cas’s usually furrowed brow deepened. “He may be present somewhere here.”

“Maybe. War did say Gabriel was one tricky son of a bitch.”

Dean thought his heavy-handed hints were good, but ten more minutes passed before Castiel poofed away to begin a search for Gabriel instead of God. Obviously Egyptian goddess trumped Judeo-Christian angel because Cas had not done that blue-eyed soul-searching thing and announced that “Dean was not Dean.” He supposed their friendship was still new and fledgling at this point; they had not yet become family.

His next step involved leaving Sam a lengthy, pep-talk “I need you to get your ass over to Bobby’s ASAP” voicemail and adding that he had discovered crucial information without revealing how.

Rather than feeling relieved, Dean mostly felt exhausted. He hit the lumpy mattress, ignored the sour-milk smell of the pillow, and slept before he had time to think about how he didn’t have time to sleep. In the recesses of his own dreams, he fought his demons, and they all took Jo’s shape. He saw her in fiery explosions, he saw her ghostly pale hand touching his cheek and saying goodbye, and he saw her bent on her knees praying to God for salvation on the cold, stone floor of the church where Lucifer was unleashed. The image of her face, upturned and tear-streaked, pressed itself into his brain.

He woke up twice in two hours; each time splashing water on his face and trying again. Sleep took him even as he feared what it would bring.

The third time he awoke from a dreamless sleep to the thud of someone knocking on his door. He rolled over, wiping drool from his mouth, and glanced at the alarm clock on the beside table. 9 a.m. Three hours of sleep had practically been a record for him back in 2009. Good enough. He grabbed his tried-and-true Colt 1911 off the nightstand and walked to the door. Through the peephole, he saw Jo Harvelle with a cup of coffee in one hand and a bag of some sort in the other, and damn her, she was smiling.

He did a quick waistband tuck for his morning wood, tying the drawstring for the sweatpants tight enough that it was uncomfortable, and opened the door.

“Good morning, Dean Winchester.” Jo gave him a sarcastically cheerful smile and pushed right past him into the room. “See, at first, I thought you just didn’t call -- which is par for the course, by the way -- but then I got up and saw your Impala still out there. And since I know damn well you didn’t go to bed at 1 a.m. and sleep straight through until now, I figured you must have been working for part of the night. So I brought coffee, in addition to my winning disposition.”

He rubbed a bleary hand over his face. “You’re awful perky for someone who must have an ass-kicking hangover.”

“I’m young and spunky, and my ass is so tight you could bounce a quarter off it so a little kick won’t hurt it. I’ll worry about my hangover. You worry about how me and my mom are going to help head off the end times.”

She gave him another grin.

“Proud of yourself for not letting me shake you, aren’t you?” Dean considered sneaking out the weird tiny window in the bathroom just to keep her from looking so smug.

“Damn straight. Now go brush your teeth and put on some real pants. I brought you coffee and powdered donuts.” She tossed the bag on the desk and took a sip out of the coffee that was supposedly his. Maybe he just wasn’t all the way awake yet or maybe she was compensating for last night, but she seemed awfully self-assured.

“First tell me how you got my room number out of the guy in the lobby. You don’t even know what name I used.”

Jo grinned at him, and his pulse kicked up at the deviousness in those eyes. “I walked in and leaned on the counter, gave him a little cleavage…” Her voice purred. Then it snapped back into her usual tone. “That did nothing though, so I pulled my shirt back up and told him you knocked me up and I had to tell you before you left town.”

“Jesus Christ.” He went into the bathroom and took his sweet time getting ready. 

Teeth brushed, head stuck under the running water for a quick rinse, and the jeans on the bathroom floor back on his body, he faced Jo again. Rather than make his life difficult, she let him drink the coffee and eat three donuts in peace. The coffee had that burnt, watery taste of convenience store brew. He didn’t complain, and she didn’t waste his time with conversation. Instead, she nibbled at a donut herself.

He could practically see her stubbornness steeling itself against him. He would tell her that there was no freakin’ way she could be anywhere near this fight, and she would argue that she had every right to be involved, that he wasn’t the boss of her, and that she wasn’t a kid anymore. And that was some bullshit. She was 24. At that age, he had been the same way, seeing star-crossed love in a pair of pretty eyes. For God’s sakes, after just a few weeks, he had told Cassie the truth about hunting and had been stupid enough to let Sam be off at college on his own. What did anyone know about anything at 24?

Shoveling the last bite of his donut in his mouth, he started tossing his stuff back into his bag.

“You might as well stop trying to come up with a way to blow me off. We’ve been there, done that,” Jo interrupted his silence.

“Oh I don’t have to blow you off, sister. You’re not a part of this.”

“How exactly would you have found War if I hadn’t been here?”

“Rufus called Bobby. Not exactly like you sniffed this lead out on your own.”

“Rufus called me and Mom first. Take that for what it’s worth.” She jutted her chin out, and he resisted the ‘That’s my girl’ thoughts that threatened to kick up.

“Speaking of which,” he aimed for distraction. “Where is your mother?”

“On her way to Sioux Falls to meet up with Bobby. I told her I’d catch a ride with you.”

He’d be damned; she didn’t miss a beat, and she didn’t even crack a smile. He growled and groused and grumbled and muttered profanity under his breath for the next five minutes while he loaded up the car, the next fifteen minutes while he made his way across town to the nearest Gas ‘n’ Sip, and for the next two hours as she sat in the passenger seat with the audacity to sit there reading a Bible.

“Dare I ask why you’re suddenly religious?” He made sure his eyes were firmly ahead before he drew her attention to him.

“I’m not. I’m researching. You talking to me again?”

“Nope. Still pissed.”

“Okay. Just checking.”

As if it wasn’t bad enough that she had conned the con man, she made his life difficult just by being in the car next to him. While reading the damn Bible, she would pull her knees up to her chest, book tucked close, and absently work that lower lip between her teeth as she read. 

Without even realizing it, she had created a routine for him. Look at the road, glance at the rearview mirror, sneak a look over at that red, worried lip and the boobs pressed against the Holy Book. He had that flippant ‘God’s going to be pissed’ thought that people often voice but didn’t know if it was because he was supposed to be focusing on saving Jo (as opposed to wanting to run his finger along the bow of her mouth) or because he was lusting over breasts on the Bible. Either way he suspected he was not earning himself brownie points with the absent Father upstairs.

He made it another hour and a half without talking, which would be a record in a lot of relationships but had not yet even gotten close to the long, terse ride with Ellen and Jo after the H.H. Holmes case. Then his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket as she asked, “You gonna answer that with me in here? Does that count as you breaking the silence?”

He ignored her, saw Sam’s name on the front screen, and flipped it open. “You on your way to Bobby’s?”

“I thought we agreed I didn’t need to be hunting right now.” Sam’s voice sounded like he hadn’t slept in six weeks. It was the voice of a man who had kickstarted the end of the world and had no idea how to live with himself until it claimed him.

“I know, but I just think we’re stronger together on this one. Listen, Cas showed up last night, and he’s had a change of plans, and I found out that all of the Horsemen have rings. I bet there’s a prize coming in the mail if we collect all of them,” Dean said. He felt Jo’s hand on his arm and glanced her way.

“Turn right up here,” she mouthed, pointing to Route 341. They needed to stay on the main highway for another 150 miles before turning anywhere, so he had no idea why she was motioning out the window at the upcoming turn.

“Hold on a second.” Dean put the phone down to his shoulder. “Why the hell do you want me to turn up here?”

“We’ve got to go pick up my car, Dean. I left it at Stolley State Park with a hunting buddy and rode with Mom down to River Pass.”

His blood pressure ticked up a few extra points. “How far out of our way is Stolley State Park?”

Before she could answer, he could hear Sam through the phone. “Stolley? That’s pretty much dead in the center of Nebraska. Who are you talking to, Dean?”

“Not too far out of our way,” Jo said, returning her attention to her Bible. “I’ll let you know when we need to turn again.”

Dean breathed in and out a few times, trying to decide if murdering her himself was against Ma’at’s master plan.

“Sorry, Sam. Talking to Jo. Long story. She’s hitching a ride with me to Bobby’s. She and Ellen think they’re going to help with all this.” He earned himself a dirty look from the passenger seat.

“Do you think it’s a good idea to get them involved?” Sam asked, a hesitant catch in his voice that made the question anything but rhetorical. His faith in his own judgment was so shot that he needed Dean for every step again.

Dean barely caught himself from hissing in a breath because he remembered when Sam had asked him that exact same question before he recruited Jo to break into Crowley’s house with him and steal the Colt. The first time around, Sam had expressed the same concern about involving the Harvelle women, and he had been right.

“We’ll worry about it when we get there. You get there when you can, okay?”

“Okay, Dean.”

“See you there.” Dean hung up without saying any of the 1500 things he was thinking. Sam would find his way there; all the shit Sam had survived… there was no way one little trip to Sioux Falls was going to be the end of him.

This one little trip to Sioux Falls might be the end of Jo Harvelle though. They spent the next several hours alternating between arguing about involvement in the Apocalypse, sniping at one another about the radio, or bitching about either having to make the drive to Stolley or impatience, depending on which person was speaking.

All that arguing should have made Dean itchy with genuine anger, but instead, he had been battling a boner off and on for about 200 miles. The more he insulted and patronized, the more she flamed up, cheeks pink and blonde waves flying around her face, while she told him he was a dumbass, a chauvinist, and the most immature adult she had ever met. A couple times, he considered going for at least half-honesty, telling her that he was trying to protect her, but then she’d bite back at him with an especially snarky retort, and he couldn’t resist volleying.

By the time they pulled in at the Park Ranger’s cabin at the edge of Stolley State Park, Dean prayed grateful prayers that he had made it without killing or kissing her.

The gratitude slipped away as the biggest man Dean had ever seen in real life stepped out of the cabin with a shotgun pointed at them.

“Jo…” Dean started to reach over to pull her down, but she had already slipped her seatbelt and taken off across the driveway. The behemoth barely had time to drop his gun before she had leapt into his arms. He lifted her up and spun her in a giddy circle, her legs wrapped around his waist. No one had ever greeted Dean that way in his life, so he told himself that was why he felt a surge of something like jealousy.

Only upon getting closer did Dean realize the ranger was younger than he had thought, closer to Jo’s age than his. Back on her feet, she slipped an arm around him and turned to look at Dean.

“Dean, this is Travis Parker. Travis, this is Dean Winchester.”

They shook hands, Travis standing a solid three inches taller than Sam. Dean shifted in his boots and tried not to notice the height differential. He glanced over at the vehicles beside the house. There was an orange pickup truck that looked a lot like Ellen’s and a battered Pontiac Fiero that had seen better days. Its side mirrors seemed to be held on with a combination of duct tape and hot glue, and its original color seemed to be blue, though its doors and some patches were unpainted gunmetal grey. As one to judge a man by the care he took of his vehicle, Dean felt a smug pride at seeing the P.O.S.

“I’ve heard a lot about the Winchesters,” Travis said.

“I’ve never heard of you,” Dean replied with a shrug. Jo shot him a poisonous look.

“Yeah. I’m small-time stuff. I only take jobs every once and while, but I grew up in the life.”

Dean ignored the statement, not taking the time to psychoanalyze why he was being a dick to some guy he had just met.

“Travis and I have known each other since we were kids. His parents used to bring him by the Roadhouse when they were in Nebraska.”

She turned up and smiled at Travis with a platonic, open grin. He looked down at her in a way Dean recognized; the angle of his head gave him a peek down the front of her tank top. While he could understand it, he didn’t like it.

“Childhood friends. That’s great. I’m sure you two have a ton to talk about.” Dean wondered if his voice could sound any less enthused about Travis and Jo. “I’m about to hit the road. See you at Bobby’s?”

As he said “you,” he looked straight at Jo, just in case Travis got any ideas about being included. Her bright eyes widened, surprised to not have to fight about continuing on to Bobby’s, and she patted Travis’s arm affectionately.

“Sorry, buddy. Sounds like we’re headed out. I’m going to follow Dean.”

“That’s fine, JoJo. I’ll see you soon.”

“JoJo. Jesus,” Dean muttered under his breath, turning back to his car to avoid seeing the potentially leg-wrapping goodbye. As he got into his car, he noticed Jo opening the door of the Fiero, not the truck. He got back out.

“That’s your car?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t possibly be planning on driving that thing 300 miles. It doesn’t look like it could make it across a town with a speed limit of 25.”

“It does fine as long as I stop a couple times to check the oil.” Jo shut the door and widened her stance, a challenge coming into her eyes.

“She’s been driving it since she got her license. It’s fine,” Travis piped up. At the sound of the other man defending the car he should have had the decency to fix up for her, Dean saw red. He and Jo kicked up into a name-calling, low-blow-dealing argument that sent Travis rushing inside with a hasty goodbye thrown over his shoulder.

Dean would be damned if he came back in time to watch her die in that death-trap. Jo Harvelle would not be driving that car to Sioux Falls, even if he had to throw her over his shoulder and truss her to his passenger seat.


	4. Lookin' through your space

This time Jo took the lead on being pissed off and not speaking to Dean, even when he put on a Blue Oyster Cult tape and treated her to a little off-key singing. She held onto her irritation all the way up until his stomach growled so loudly that she heard it over the music. Then she begrudgingly admitted that she was hungry too and would be glad to stop and grab a bite to eat.

Dean pulled off in what seemed to be the cutest little Mayberry town he had ever seen. It was one of those towns where you parked and then walked down the cobblestoned Main Street without any cars. As soon as he saw it, he thought about turning around and leaving, but Jo had looked delighted, so he had parked. They found a diner -- charmingly named “Diner” if the sign was right -- and got a table for two. The waitress gave him that flirtatious smile he usually liked until Jo called him “honey” and ordered for both of them. If she had been anyone else, he would have kicked her under the table. Instead, he heard himself chuckle.

“Put your claws away, Blondie. I’m not looking to get laid.” He regretted his choice of words as soon as he said them. She met his gaze, and he felt the uncomfortable itch of knowing what they both were thinking. He played off a quick subject change, even as she rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly.

“I’m sorry I threw a fit about my car. It’s not reliable, but it is mine.”

“I understand. I’m just not having you die on my watch.”

Apologies out of the way, they enjoyed dinner together. Dean couldn’t remember the last time he had such a nice meal with someone. They laughed, passed the ketchup back and forth without arguing, and did not mention a single thing that went bump in the night. A couple times, their hands or knees brushed, and Dean did not miss the way she caught his eye each time, looking to him to see if he had noticed or if she was the only one electrified by physical contact. Over the last few hours, he had repeated a thousand excuses for himself: you’re just lonely, you are just so grateful she’s alive, you’re just a guy, you are turned on by her having a crush on you. But no matter what excuse he tried, when he looked at her, he felt that stupid flip-flopping feeling in his stomach.

“So I’ve been thinking.” She took a bite of her slice of cherry pie, turned the fork over, and slid it back into her mouth to get the rest of the filling off. He swallowed hard. “We should go see a movie.”

“We need to get to Bobby’s.”

“You love movies, it’s too late to do anything major by the time we get to Bobby’s anyway, we walked past one on the way from the car to this diner, you owe me after making me leave my car behind… Do I need to keep going with my reasons?”

Dean tried to remember the last time he went to a movie. As a kid, whenever they’d had extra money, he had taken Sam to catch a flick, their pockets bulging with convenience store candy. Movies had kept Sam occupied for an hour, but Dean had been mesmerized. For two hours, a movie held the whole world at bay and took him somewhere else. Theaters had been a special treat, but after Sammy went to bed, Dean had spent a lot of nights binge-watching before binge-watching was a thing. Even middle school Dean had usually run on 4 or so hours of sleep, preferring to use his nighttime to cruise for fantasy or porn, whichever one he was lucky enough to find.

And of course, in later years, movies were the perfect place to make out with a girl without having your kid brother in the room.

“Is that silence a yes?” Jo slurped down the last sip of her Coke, a gesture so much less sexual than her pie eating that Dean said silent thanks for it.

Then he actually answered her question. “Sure. Why not? I haven’t been to a movie in years.”

“There’s one called _Inglorious Basterds_ that just came out. World War II. Want to see that one?”

Dean tossed a couple of bills on the table and stood up. He had seen Inglourious Basterds on FX one night with Sam and Bobby; Bobby had been particularly amused by the film, even though he had spent the first thirty minutes complaining about doing something as stupid and unproductive as watching a movie.

“Yeah. I’ve heard it’s funny.”

They walked side by side out of the diner and down the cobbled sidewalk, street lamps glowing above them. The air had surprising nip to it, and Jo tugged at her jacket, pulling it tighter around her body. They paid at the ticket booth, passed by the empty concessions stand, and entered an empty movie theater. The lights were still on, but not a soul was in there.

Something occurred to Dean. “What day is it?”

Jo grinned at him and then concentrated, tallying on her fingers. “Guess it’s Tuesday.”

Dean supposed he shouldn’t be surprised to see that a movie theater at 9 p.m. on a September Tuesday in rural South Dakota would be empty. He let her pick the seats, a pair right near the middle, and when they sat down, his skin prickled with anticipation. Movie theaters and women… his response was practically Pavlovian. Rhonda Hurley, Jamie, Mary, Stacy Lowe, that random redhead he met at a hardware store… he had some rather happy, sometimes kinky memories in movie theaters. Rather than pretend the concept didn’t exist, he tried acknowledging it casually.

“Man, this is a teenage dream. Empty movie theater, pretty girl. I’ve made out in some movie theaters in my day but was never lucky enough to have them empty.”

Jo looked over at him, and he watched a blush creep its way across her cheeks. “I didn’t suggest a movie to make out with you.”

Dean hadn’t actually thought she had, but he couldn’t resist needling that pretty red flush.

“I’m sure you didn’t. I mean, you’ve probably had your fill of this cliche. You told me the first time I met you how tired you were of the barroom fling cliche.”

Rather than recognize his teasing, she answered him seriously. “Actually, I’ve never kissed anybody in a movie theater.”

Dean turned his whole body in the seat to look at her even as the lights faded out and the commercials started.

“Never? What did you do in high school?”

“I worked behind the bar, got ignored at school, lost my virginity to Travis so it wouldn’t be awkward…” She said it all in a rush, a little half-smile glowing in the light of the screen. That downright explained Dean’s earlier feeling that he wanted to kick Travis’s ass. She continued, “But really, I never got to have a lot of those experiences. I’ve gotten to have sex when I want it, but it hasn’t exactly been the conventional dinner-and-a-movie route.”

“I see.” His voice sounded strangled to his ears, and he tried to push down the irritation he felt at the thought of her having sex with that bonehead park ranger.

“You’re not going to make fun of me?”

“Nope.” He said but immediately turned his words into a lie, “I’m just going to put my arm around you, so you can pretend you’re on a date.”

“Asshole.” She didn’t shrug his arm off though.

The commercials played through, the movie started, and Dean could not pay a bit of attention. His mind tumbled over her words. She had played it casually, sure, but he remembered high school for him and for Sam. He had been quick to let everything roll off his back, focused on hunting and his own cocky persona, but Sam had taken every moment to heart. He had wanted to be normal. Dean couldn’t tell if he had heard that same wistfulness in Jo’s voice or not, but he knew one thing: everyone should make out in a movie theater at some point.

He spared a glance over at her. Her eyes were intent upon the screen, but her hands rested on her thighs and her shoulders held just a little tension under his arm. He rubbed his thumb in a lazy circle on her shoulder, and her breath hitched just enough for him to know if he went in for the kiss, he wouldn’t be rejected.

But he remembered the taste of her lips from another time and place. Her mouth had been cold the first time he kissed her, and the faint flavor of iron and sweat had lingered there. The haunting memory hung in the air around him.

Then she laughed at something on the screen. He didn’t even look up to see what had made her laugh. Instead he watched the crinkle of her nose and the twinkle of her eyes in the light of the screen, and he felt the suddenness of just how alive she was like a lightning bolt.

“You know,” he said, leaning over to whisper in her ear, “on a date, the guy would start putting the moves on you right now.”

She tilted her head towards him, and a smile crept onto her lips.

“What would the moves of a high school guy look like?”

Dean couldn’t resist. “The moves of a high school guy or the moves I would have used in high school?”

“Is there a difference?” She zinged back, and he nodded.

“Definitely. See, if you weren’t still in diapers when I was in high school…”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she grumbled.

“And if I had taken you out for a movie,” he continued, ignoring her, “I’d wait until just about now, and then I’d lean over and whisper something to you…”

He leaned over, putting his mouth beside her ear, and dropped his voice even lower. The moment hovered in balance between a joke and a move, and his pulse ratcheted up as he heard her breath quicken. He closed his fingers in the fabric of her jacket on the opposite shoulder, pulling her still closer to him.

“You have no idea how beautiful you look tonight,” he whispered in her ear, and for all that he was being deliberately cheesy, he also knew it was true.

“Did that line work for you in high school?” She played coy, above it all, but he saw goosebumps rising across the little bit of visible skin near her collarbone.

Those little bumps of flesh, promising him that he electrified her, made him drop the joke. He took his arm out from around her and instead turned her body in the chair, cupping her face in his hands. Her molasses eyes asked him a question, and he nodded to them.

“This is probably stupid, but I want to kiss you,” he said. As soon as he said it, she smiled, and he melted. She brought that smile to his mouth, and he realized she was kissing him first. The novelty of someone else’s smile on his lips sent his insides skittering, and he pulled her closer.

First kisses have their own magic -- and Dean had more of them notched on his bedpost than most men -- but the sweetness of Jo’s mouth, the insistence of her hands finding their way to the front of his jacket and tugging, and the heat of her skin under his fingers made him a teenager again. When she slid her tongue against his lips, he parted for her, and when he reached down to cop a feel, hand pressing into the softness, he felt the thrilling arousal as if he never had before. She arched into his hand and made the softest sound, a mew that went straight to his groin.

They kissed and groped and fumbled together for hot, beautiful minutes that made him entirely forget the joke upon which this had begun. If the armrest between them hadn’t been digging into him, he would be stripping her down, pulling out any number of his patented panty-dropper moves.

She finally broke the kiss, just as she had started it, and she looked at him with swollen, wet lips, panting. The sight made him want to bury himself against her all over again, and he reached for her hand instead, gripping it just a little too tight. He could do the right thing, bring the joke back up, put that wall back up between them, but her proximity clouded all thought. Instead, he pulled her towards him.

“Come here.”

She climbed onto his lap, and they put teenagers to shame with their pawing, groping desperation. He trailed his mouth down her neck, wrestled her jacket off of her, and even drew kisses along her shoulder. The tang of her deodorant and sweat in his nose, he nosed away the strap of her tank top and nipped at her bra strap. He tugged it with his teeth. She moaned and ground against him, and he saw stars. She pressed her fingers against his chest and drew her nails down as she sunk out of his lap to the floor below. He played the aggressor, the leader, in all of his sexual encounters, and the flipped script made his mouth dry. His skin now rippled in goosebumps.

On her knees, she reached for his belt, and his already-tight jeans suddenly needed release. He swallowed hard as he watched her blonde waves bobble as she loosened his pants. The shocking thought that his line had been accurate, that she was beautiful in a way he had never let himself notice, slipped through his mind, escaping his emotional lockdown before he could grab it and drifting out into the universe. The thought flew free and away from him until he lost any grip on it at all and it just became fact: he thought she was beautiful.

Jo tilted her head up to meet his eyes as she unzipped his fly, and her eyes on his as she took charge lit him up.

He had no patented moves at his disposal now, just the ability to watch her as the anticipation hammered in his veins. He drew in a ragged breath as she leaned forward to brush her lips along the waistband of his underwear, just grazing the skin, just barely touching him and yet sending his heart galloping in his chest. She dallied like she had all the time in the world, a thousand lifetimes to tease and toy with him, and if he had been able to regain control of his limbs, he would have scooped her back up and crushed her against him, kissed her senseless, taken back the situation.

Just when Jo had him so over a barrel he thought he was going to explode, a slice of light cut into the darkness from the back of the movie theater, and a creaky voice rang out over the movie itself.

“I’m old and don’t much care what you do in my theater, but you should know teenagers run the reels and can see you. They’re about to start taking bets on what’s going to happen next.”

Dean had never seen someone go from floor to chair so fast in his life. She buried her face in her hands, and he could practically hear the sizzle of red racing into her cheeks. He felt a rush of affection for anyone who could be about to blow him in a public place but could still get this embarrassed by it.

Then he realized he had been about to let Jo Harvelle blow him in a movie theater.

The brakes in his head slammed so hard they squealed.

Jo didn’t speak through the rest of the movie, and Dean didn’t push her. By the time the end credits rolled, though, he reached over to touch her hand.

“You had the full teen movie date experience, right down to the usher catching you and telling you to knock it off.”

“Guess I did.” Her voice was tight. She put her jacket back on.

The chilly air when they entered the theater earlier had become a full-blown cold snap, and Dean rubbed his hands together as they walked down the street back to where the Impala was parked. The silence between he and Jo felt awkward now, and he had no way of remedying it. They shouldn’t have been making out like that in a movie theater. It was a stupid decision on every single level. He needed a sharp mind and clear head for what they had ahead of them, and he needed her to understand that he was supposed to protect her. Compromising that for a few sweaty minutes, no matter how much they had rattled something inside of him, was senseless. Yet telling her that what had just happened was senseless and shouldn’t happen again… that thought made him want to jump off a bridge. She would take it the wrong way, like she meant nothing, when really the problem was that she meant too much.

He closed his eyes as he unlocked the passenger side door for her, remembering the smell of chemicals and burning flesh the day she had died. Lucifer’s eyes glowing through his vessel as he absorbed the Colt’s shot flashed in his mind. Dean had a job to do.

They started driving again, this time into long open road under velvety night sky. He loved nights like this with nothing but road and space ahead of him. Ghosts, demons, angels, vampires, and all the other creatures out there felt very far away when the Impala purred under him and no other headlights broke the landscape. This magic of the open road, very old and very beloved, could distract him from anything.

Jo must not have felt the same way, for after a while, she spoke up. He heard her intake of breath before she began speaking and braced himself for answering questions about what that meant and feelings and crap he didn’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole.

“That was a mistake, Dean.”

He tightened his hands on the wheel. “Excuse me?”

“It was just high-adrenaline situation stuff. The Apocalypse and all. It’s just a version of the ‘it’s our last night on Earth’ speech, only we didn’t do a lot of talking…” Her voice bobbled before regaining its surety. He spared a glance over at her. “You know as well as I do how people act when they think they’re going to die. They don’t mean what they do. They just… act.”

Dean squeezed his hands so tightly on the wheel that he felt his ring dig into his flesh. For some reason, he thought of his dad, standing there beside the hospital bed and telling him he was proud of him. The same man who never thanked his eldest for making sure everyone had clean socks or for scrambling eggs in the morning had suddenly acknowledged that failure.

He thought of himself singing “Dead or Alive” at the top of his lungs in the car, listening to Sam howl with abandon for the first time since he was a teenager. He thought of how even though he was about to go to Hell, he wanted nothing more than to see his little brother smile.

He thought of Sam when he went to say yes to Lucifer. His brother’s resolute jaw had trembled as he said his goodbyes, but he had glistened with a strange pride as well, an unexpected hubris that allowed Sam to reach for greatness and ultimately, to trap Satan in a box in Hell.

He thought of Castiel, the brave, stupid angel who did not know whether to be human or God, trying to stuff souls back in Purgatory and hold back Leviathans, trying to save the world even though he knew he was doomed, the angel who had spent his last breaths trying to tell his friends that he would make it up to them.

He thought of Jo bravely telling them to go on without her, watching them build a bomb to blow her up, and he thought of kissing her goodbye because he could not imagine never seeing her again without having kissed her. Ellen had known she would die when she sat down beside her little girl and sent the Winchesters to kill the devil.

Dean thought maybe he knew a lot more about how people act when they think they’re going to die than Jo did right now.

“I’m not worried we’re going to die. I’m going to kick this Apocalypse’s ass,” Dean replied tersely, not sure how he could still breathe with so many memories of so much pain swirling in the car around him.

“Dean, be serious.”

“I am being serious. I’m going to win. We’re -- humanity and all that -- we’re going to stop this thing.”

“Okay,” Jo readjusted in her seat and fiddled with the lapbelt. “That doesn’t change what I’m talking about here. We made a mistake, gave into adrenaline, but we’ve got bigger fish to fry. If I don’t treat myself with a little self-respect, how the hell am I going to convince you that you can’t stop me from helping with this thing?”

“We’ll talk about you helping when we get to Bobby’s. That’s an argument for another day.” Dean pushed down on the accelerator and revved her up a little louder, the growl of his engine grounding him. He knew he should be agreeing with her about the steam between them being a mistake; that was the simplest, cleanest way out of this mess he was making of their friendship. But it stuck in his craw thinking that she saw it that way. He had not been reacting to adrenaline back there; he had wanted to kiss her, and he had. It was probably just simple attraction tacked onto friendship, it was definitely a bad idea to pursue it, but whatever else it was, it was real.

“As for tonight, we didn’t make a mistake. We’re two adults.” He pulled a cocky grin that he didn’t quite mean. “Two damn good-looking adults. Making out at least once is pretty much a requirement in a situation like ours. I’m not going to apologize for it. Doesn’t mean I’m going to repeat it either. But I’m not sorry.”

Jo seemed to like the sound of that. He glanced her way and saw her nibbling that bottom lip, trying not to smile.

“C’mon, Jo. Don’t try to justify it with a bunch of psychology mumbo-jumbo. You know you’re not sorry either.”

The smile appeared now, and he felt it squeeze in his chest.

“Fine. I guess I’m not sorry. But it ain’t happening again either. I’m a hunter, not some girl for you to run out on.”

“Like you’d ever let me forget you think you’re a hunter,” he said slyly.

“Think I’m a hunter? Oh ho, listen here, buddy…”

As she wound up to give him a good tongue-lashing, Dean felt strange tendrils of happiness growing up through the tangle of anxiety, doubt, dread, and hope that battled in him daily.

He decided to take his own advice and not try to justify it with a bunch of psychology mumbo-jumbo.

They were only a few hours from Bobby’s, and there, the work to save everyone he cared about truly began.


	5. Pioneer town people

Bobby Singer’s Salvage Yard became the most ragtag hunters’ retreat the world had ever seen. Ellen had arrived first, followed by Dean and Jo. The elder Harvelle had pulled her daughter aside for a tongue-lashing while Dean had greeted Bobby with his heart in his throat; he had forgotten he would see that wheelchair again. That was one way 2009 had been a hell of a lot worse than a few years down the road. The two men had gone with a handshake, not a hug, but they had both held on a few seconds too long.

Not a day and a half after Dean and the Harvelles arrived, Sam showed up, looking more like a beaten puppy than any man nearly six-and-a-half-feet tall should. It was shocking how much younger he looked in 2009 than the recent memory, so much less physically broken than the man whose own head had cracked. When Dean looked away, his mind kept resetting to that stored image of his brother, red-rimmed eyes and early wrinkles. Then when he looked again and saw what was actually in front of him, Sam seemed not a bit older than when he had walked out to go to Stanford, with that same hang-dog fear of rejection on his face.

Dean pulled him in and hugged him a little too long too, and the surprise kicking up on Sam’s face got him right in the chest too. Of course, Dean had pulled out all his usual jokes and snarks for the first couple days at Bobby’s, but then it had been time to head to town for groceries.

“You want to drive?” Dean had tossed him the keys. Sam had caught them in his left hand, looked up so full of gratitude it made your teeth hurt, and then taken them into town. Dean hadn’t had to apologize any further than that, which worked just fine for him. By the time they got back from town, Rufus had shown up with a suitcase and a case of Johnnie Walker.

“You know you dumb sons of bitches can’t stop this thing without me,” he had groused and marched up to take over the good guest room where the Winchesters had slept since they were kids.

From there, the days moved in an odd rhythm of research, omen-tracking, and hoping. Sometimes Castiel came with news, sometimes Ellen and Jo loaded up and went to work a case, sometimes Sam and Dean chased down a lead on a Horseman that ended up to be nothing more than demons, and sometimes a day passed where nothing at all happened.

Six adults, all independent and crotchety as hell, shared two bathrooms, three bedrooms, and three kitchen chairs. Rufus and Ellen maintained camp in the good room with two beds; Rufus staked out his claim with an “age before beauty” remark that earned a chuckle from Jo. Bobby kept his room on the first floor though it ground his gears to do it, but it was the only one with wheelchair access. Still he groused his way to bed later than any of them most nights, and Dean could have sworn he could hear the man’s guilt sloshing around inside of him like whiskey in a barrel.

Sam had suggested sleeping in the panic room since they were flat out of space, and Dean had squashed that idea so fast that everyone’s heads had spun to look at him.

“We might need it for something, and we don’t need it full of Sam’s hair products in the meantime,” he had justified with a smirk. Really, he just could not imagine what it would do to Sam’s pysche to sleep in there right now. He already saw himself as some sort of demonic pariah, skirting around the others and working harder and longer than he needed to every day.

So Jo got the living room couch, and Sam and Dean got the floor, even though Dean had joked that chivalry should be dead because she was the youngest and would survive the knotty hardwood better than any of them. Somehow Dean ended up sleeping in between her and Sam, and when he tossed and turned his way through the night, he never knew how he would wake up. For years, he had slept with his arm tossed out in Sam’s direction, a throwback habit from childhood where little brother had needed him often, but some mornings now he woke up with one arm towards Sam and his whole body cocked towards Jo. It just depended who had suffered worse Hell in his nightmares that night.

The night that Lucifer came to Sam in his sleep and told him the truth about being his vessel, Sam had woken Dean up, shaking him alert. In a hushed whisper, so as not to wake Jo, Sam had shakily revealed the information, and he had bent over, head on his hands. Dean had held tight onto his shoulder, whispering reassurances and reminding himself again that he could not risk time paradox by revealing anything to Sam. He just needed to do his job and do it right.

Every morning, he woke with fresh resolve to save them all. The words “I have to save them” became his mantra, and he repeated them within his thoughts and digested them daily along with his eggs, cheeseburgers, and beer.

Jo killed him. Between the nightmares and the too-good dreams, the smiles she snuck out of him without even meaning it, and her stubbornness that made him want to throttle her, she had him so on edge that he could distinguish her breathing from a room away. Every time she and Ellen walked out that door to work a case, he had to remind himself a hundred times that she had been hunting for years without him now and that the only time she had ever turned up dead had been the second time she went hunting with him. That didn’t stop him from slamming doors a little too hard until she got back though. When she came back from one hunt driving her piece of shit car, he groused for an extra day on principle.

He ate breakfast beside her most days, had the occasional off-topic conversation where he liked her a little more than he had before they talked, and tried to pretend that the affection he saw in her eyes was a projection not a reflection.

The days became weeks, and the cool fall faded into bitter South Dakota winter. The first snowfall blanketed the ground the day before Castiel showed up with news about the Trickster. Dean had been out shoveling the Impala out and cussing up and down about Frosty the Snowman, dick snow angels, and white shit falling from the sky. He freakin' hated winter.

“You keep talking to yourself, and I’m going to think you’re crazy.” Jo spoke as she approached, carrying her own shovel in gloved hands. Dean turned to look at her, prepared to send her back inside, but instead raised an eyebrow at her outfit. Rufus’s stocking cap perched on her waves, Dean’s other coat layered over her usual attire, and plastic grocery bags stuck out of the top of her boots.

“Coming from the blonde wearing bags in her shoes? I’ll take my chances. Why are you wearing my coat?”

“Because it was hanging by the hook on my way out the door.” She walked past him and started to shovel out her car. “I knew you wouldn’t care.”

She was right. If anything, he liked the sight of her in his jacket on some primal level, the same level that made boys want to leave hickeys all over their girlfriends and men want to spread their seed. He kept working, and as he started to sweat, he took off his black beanie and tucked it in his pocket. When he lifted his eyes back up, he saw Castiel in front of him, so close he could smell that unique tang of salt, freshness, and nothing at all. Dean would never forget the first time Cas stood to close to him, and he caught a whiff of that distinctly inhuman smell. If the wings hadn’t made his angelhood obvious, the smell gave away that he was no human.

“Dean,” Cas used his name as a greeting, then tilted his head over to look at Jo. “Hello Jo.”

“Hey Cas. Any word on anything?” Jo leaned sideways against her shovel as she looked at him.

“There are many words on everything,” Cas responded, and Dean tried not to roll his eyes so far into his head that they got stuck. In a hundred little ways, he struggled daily with not revealing that he was from a future he hoped no longer existed, but in its own petty way, having rewound Cas to a less human-adjacent state was one of the worst.

“She wants to know if you’ve found anything about the Horsemen or your missing brother.”

“Yes. That is why I am here. I may have located Gabriel. I believe he has been posing as a trickster and that you have met him before.”

“The Trickster?” Dean did not think of himself as a particularly good actor, so his surprised voice lacked a little oomph. From the corner of his eye, he saw Jo looking at him oddly. “Like the douchebag who’s tried to kill us a couple times?”

“Yes.” Castiel nodded. “He is in Chicago. Doing this.”

Cas extended his hand and in it appeared a shiny, folded piece of paper. Dean accepted it only to see a playbill for _Cats_ , the Broadway musical. He thumbed it open, scanning, until he saw Gabriel’s smug face beside the name Macavity.

“You’ve got to be freakin’ kidding me,” Dean muttered. He turned and handed the playbill to Jo, pointing to the culprit. “That’s the Trickster.”

“You were killed over a hundred times by a guy who is playing a cat on Broadway?”

“A demi-god who it turns out may be an archangel, so you can save your judgment,” Dean corrected. He watched her look at the playbill, a pensive expression taking form, and he could practically see her brain working. She had to be crafting her argument as to why she should be allowed to tag along on a trip to Chicago.

“We need to find out if this Trickster is indeed the archangel Gabriel,” Cas said.

“So we’re going to Chicago.” Jo jutted her chin out as she said the words. Dean resisted the urge to smile. She had gone with the bold choice of stating her accompaniment as fact. The stubborn set of her jaw matched the steel in her eyes. His blood kicked a little faster through his veins as he thought of the argument he could get out of her right now, the way he could wind her up and get color in her cheeks and sparks flying in the air between them.

For once, though, there was no need to even have the argument. Of all the dangers he did not want her facing, he had the luxury of knowing Gabriel was not one of them. He remembered how the archangel had tried to help them, stubbornly believing in family even as he prepared to kill his own brother. Dean was not worried about Gabriel hurting Jo.

“We?” Dean pretended to consider it.

“Yes, Dean Winchester. We. I’ll go tell Sam.” She pushed her shovel into Castiel’s hands and marched away before Dean could even tell her he was allowing her to join them.

“You don’t want her to come,” Cas said it as fact. “I could snow the car back in and tell her I can only transport humans who are angelic vessels.”

Dean leaned on his shovel and looked over at Cas, trying not to feel too nostalgic over these moments of friendship and insight. He wanted to say You and I are going to be really great friends, Cas. Like family. This time, I’m going to keep you from betraying me. Instead he kept eye contact as long as was comfortable and then shook his head.

“Nah. She can come along. She’s not a kid.” Dean turned to go inside. “C’mon. Let’s go make a plan.”

\------------------------

With holy oil in a mason jar, courtesy of Bobby Singer, three humans and an angel entered the Cadillac Palace Theater. Sam had bought Meet and Greet tickets for the _Cats_ cast from a guy for about $200 a piece above face value to get them in here. The ten hour drive in the Impala had been surprisingly pleasant; Cas had chosen not to partake, Sam had stretched out in the backseat where his knees weren’t pressed against the dashboard, and Jo had sung along to the radio from the passenger seat. A few times she had touched his arm, casually getting his attention, and once he had needed her to read a street sign and had reached over to touch her knee, jostling her to catch her focus.

Having Sam as shotgun came so naturally to him that he found himself startled every time he glanced over and saw her over there. Either she was getting prettier, or he was getting softer as the days passed and he let himself believe he might be able to stop seeing her death in his dreams.

They had all stopped to change in a rest stop bathroom halfway through the trip, the men putting on their suits and Jo putting on some sort of black dress. She had pulled her hair up into a knot at the back of her neck. Dean wasn’t sure he liked the serious, adult look it gave her, but he resisted the temptation to tug it back down into haphazard waves. Styx served as the soundtrack for the rest of the drive. Even Sam mumbled out a little singing along on “Renegade.”

Once inside the theater, Jo slipped into the long line for the women’s bathroom while Castiel searched the town for evidence of demons. Dean looked over at Sam as they stood together in the lobby. Theatergoers mulled around them, but against the wall, they were alone in a sea of people.

“How you feeling, Sammy?”

“Better all the time. I’m still scared of what I could do, but I’m feeling stronger. I won’t say yes to the Devil, Dean. I know you worry about it.”

Dean shook his head, though a swell of pride grew in his chest. Sam wouldn’t have to say yes to Lucifer this time, but if he had had to, Dean knew his little brother would kick that overgrown tree topper’s ass again.

“I trust you.” He let the weight of the words fall between them, let them make an impact and be felt, and then moved on quickly before either of them could be embarrassed. “How long is Jo going to take in the bathroom?”

Sam had visibly relaxed under Dean’s affirmation. “I don’t know. It was a pretty long line. What’s going on there anyway?”

“Nothing.” Dean bristled, irritated with himself that he wasn’t able to keep whatever bubbled under the surface from being visible.

“Whatever. Pretty sure it’s something.”

“You just know I’ve got all the moves with the ladies,” Dean replied, shooting his brother a cocky grin. He felt Jo’s approach on his other side before he could turn and knew she had heard. He turned to see her twinkling behind him.

“Were you the one putting on the moves in that movie theater? I could have sworn I was putting them on you…” Her open-mouthed smile lit up her whole face as she teased him, and he glanced over to check his brother’s expression. Sam looked amused as hell.

“First rule of the movie theater: don’t talk about the movie theater,” Dean replied.

“Second rule of the movie theater: don’t talk about the movie theater,” Jo countered.

“You’ve got Fight Club references. Something is definitely going on between you two.” Sam looked from one to the other.

“Nothing’s going on between us,” Jo corrected, and Dean threw an admiring glance her way. She could dole out the Winchester snark and zing as well as a native.

“Right. Let’s get to…” In the middle of Dean’s sentence, the room around him froze completely. Jo’s face had paused in an awful in-between as her mouth transitioned from smile to neutral. Around him people stood mid-stride in impossible poses. Sam, however, turned his head from side to side. Alone, the two Winchesters stood amidst the toy shelf stillness.

“What the hell?” Dean’s skin prickled.

“I don’t know.” Sam sounded how Dean felt.

Suddenly the staccato sound of clapping filled the air. Lucifer - clothed in his familiar vessel - stepped through the entryway of the theater itself. He paused at a frozen woman, carrying a little boy, and lifted up a lock of her hair. He twirled it around his fingers, released it strand by strand to fan back down, and then continued his approach.

“Hello Sam Winchester.” Lucifer did not smile as he spoke, but his voice pitched gently. He sounded almost warm, almost friendly, in the way that predators did when they wanted children to follow them away.

“Lucifer.” Sam lost the word as an exhalation of shaky breath.

“And Dean Winchester.” He tilted his head to look at Dean. “What a pleasure. My brother’s vessel and my own, the two hardest-to-find humans on Earth, walk into the same theater where I am seeking something else very important to me. The coincidence does not seem possible.”

Dean knew he had faced down Lucifer before, more than once, but this time, the fear of being discovered lent a new terror to the graceful devil who stood calmly before them. He could feel his brain churning over with insults - “What do you want, you flying assmonkey?” - but his mouth would not move. Fear became paralysis. He clenched the muscles of body as if Ma’at’s magic could drift out to Lucifer and alert him to Dean’s unnatural presence.

Sam spoke up. “You’re not going to hurt us. You need us. And I’m not going to say yes. And he’s not going to say yes. So what do you want?”

Lucifer half-smiled.

“I admire you, Sam. You’re underappreciated. You’ve been through so much, always trying to help, always walking a step behind your brother and taking orders, and yet when you try to help, try to do something on your own, you get blasted by…” He lifted his hands palm-up to the cosmos. “Everybody. You want to stop me, and I know you won’t, but I’m willing to let you find that out on your own. I’m not here for you.”

He took a step closer. “I’m certainly not here for your brother, the obedient brawn of your father’s outfit. He’s not worth addressing. No, I’m here for the same reason you are.”

Lucifer stopped and let the weight of silence fall over them. Neither Sam nor Dean knew words to form. The seconds dragged.

“I could stop their breathing, brother. All these little lemmings are poised on the edge of a cliff, waiting on you to either save or damn them.”

Dean realized Lucifer was waiting for Gabriel to appear and address him, and Dean did not know how that might change everything. He murmured a silent prayer that Castiel didn’t decide to poof back into the midst of this and then looked over at Jo. He raised a hand in front of her mouth and felt the steady in and out of breathing. Her lungs were working inside the paralyzed shell of her exterior. He said another silent prayer of gratitude for that.

The popping sound of an angel pushing into material form broke the silence.

“Luci, I’m home!” Gabriel appeared in the middle of the room, extending his right leg and right arm in a bit of a bow. He wore the full stage makeup and costume of the villainous cat, Macavity, a ginger and black monstrosity.

“You must be kidding.” Lucifer looked up and down, taking in the ensemble. “This is what you have been doing on earth.”

Gabriel’s mouth formed a terse line in spite of the joking tone he employed. “Oh, it’s been a long time. I’ve been able to do a whole lot in the last couple thousand years.”

“Helping your other rebellious brother did not seem to be on your list.”

“You were out of line. You threw a fit and tried to smash up a whole world full of living things, things modeled after our Father, after us.”

“You rebelled,” Lucifer said. His tone revealed this sliver of optimism, this small, fragile feather of hope. Even the Devil wanted his brother on his side, but Gabriel was already shaking his head. The gesture should have been ridiculous coming from a theatrical cat, but the conversation’s weight nullified the frivolity.

“I walked out. It’s different. And having lived here amongst the humans, I have to say, they’re better than we are. We’re adolescents with cosmic power and insecurities about our dick size. Humans at least don’t play the same song over and over again. They change.”

“They’re worms beneath our feet, and he wanted us to bow to them.” Lucifer’s cold voice quavered, nearly breaking its restraint. Dean shivered involuntarily under the weight of the cold rage conveyed. Lucifer wanted to watch the world burn. He wanted them all to die.

“I won’t bow, but neither will I lead. I’m no overlord, and you should have stayed in your box.”

Now Lucifer did change, his eyes flickering for just a moment with a flare of light that reminded Dean of Castiel burning blue before using his powers. He lifted his angel blade and moved towards Gabriel who merely smiled.

“Cheap trick, Luci, but I’m not actually standing in front of you.” The image of Macavity, so solid, swirled into the more familiar image of Gabriel. “And if you want to find me, you’d better set these people free and start looking.”

Gabriel looked regretful for one long second before snapping back to snarky. Dean recognized that Lucifer was not the only one who hoped on some impossible level that his brother would see his side of the equation. The two angels squared off, staring each other down, and then in an instant, the room snapped back to frenzied life. Lucifer and Gabriel were gone. The people moved, Jo’s mouth finished its transition begun minutes ago, and she turned to Dean expectantly.

“You going to finish that sentence?” Jo asked. Then she seemed to notice that even if nothing in the room around them had changed, the men at her side had. “What happened?”

Dean saw the slightest of tremors in his own hands and finally felt the flood of fear move through the paralysis. In all of his plans, he had intended to keep his friends and family away from Lucifer. He had relied foolishly on linear thinking: if he kept everyone away from Missouri, away from Detroit, away from where he knew the Devil would be, he could keep them all from ever encountering him. He had factored out the cold reality that Lucifer was free and that every moment that Dean changed, he altered the timeline. He lost control of the situation with every piece of it he affected. He was truly reliving the Apocalypse again with a coin flipping up in the air. Chance spun above him, and he could only hope for the Heads outcome on which he had bet everything.

He looked at Jo’s earnest brown eyes and realized how easily Lucifer could have snapped her neck, ended her in an instant just because he had let her tag along. He had underestimated the danger of the Apocalypse, and that sin was unforgivable for someone who had already survived it once without her.

“Lucifer.” Sam said the name with surprisingly little quake in his voice. “He was here looking for Gabriel too. He froze everyone. Are you okay?”

As Sam replied to her, Dean found himself just looking at her in disbelief at his own stupidity. When Castiel appeared beside them, eyes wide, Dean barely let him get out “Lucifer and Gabriel were here, but I lost them” before he turned a stony gaze on him. He grabbed Jo’s arm and tugged her toward Cas.

“Take her back to Bobby’s. Now.”

For once, the angel did not question him. Castiel disappeared with her before she could open her mouth in protest.


	6. That smile upon your face

In the quiet of Bobby’s house after the long return drive, Dean walked in to find Jo waiting up for him. She sat at the kitchen table, alone, and holding a cup of steaming coffee. The muscle in his jaw clenched, for she wore a pair of sweatpants, fluffy socks, and an oversized flannel shirt that must have belonged to her dad. He’d be damned if she didn’t look like coming home. She greeted Sam with a hug, holding her arms out to make certain he was okay, asking him questions with such familiarity that Dean had to marvel at the ease that had grown between them in these long weeks. Without him noticing, those two had become family. 

Perceptive as always, Sam then slipped away to go lay down after a very long day.

“Hey Jo,” Dean felt tired in every inch of every bone in his body. The whole drive he had heard neither the music nor Sam’s conversation over the wheels in his head. Lucifer had not seen through him, but he had been where Dean had least expected him. Dean had no control over this situation, and the illusion that had told him otherwise had evaporated in Lucifer’s presence.

Even locating Gabriel had been a bust; he was found but no more a part of their team than before.

“I made you a cup of coffee.” Jo handed him one of the mugs. “We need to talk.”

“The dreaded words.” He tried a joke, but it barely scraped its way out of his mouth. She frowned at him. None of her usual indulgence appeared on her face. She had him cornered, and she obviously intended to say her piece. First she lifted her coffee mug to her mouth, took a sip, and then licked the rim where a drop must have been left behind. In spite of the hellacious day he had just had, he did not miss that use of tongue. Then she erased any good directions it was going to tempt his thoughts by using it for serious matters.

“Listen, Dean, you can’t keep treating me like a kid when things get scary out there. You’ve got to treat me just like any other hunter.”

He shook his head. 

“I can’t do that.”

She looked at him, took another long sip of her coffee, but did not offer him help by continuing the conversation. Instead, she was waiting him out. He watched the pulse in her throat spasm an extra time, saw that her breath was bated as she held out for an answer. For all her ferocity and tenacity, she liked him in that same breath-catching way she had when he first walked into the Roadhouse. She wanted him to treat her like another flannel-wearing hunter, but on a level she would never dare to mention and probably did not even acknowledge to herself, she wanted him to see her differently too.

He needed to explain to her the friendship between them, the camaraderie, and how it made him want to protect her. He opened his mouth to offer an honest-adjacent answer and instead heard himself say something entirely true.

“I have nightmares about you dying.”

A slew of the worst profanity he knew floated through his head, but she did not look startled. Instead she nodded.

“I know.”

“Excuse me?” He liked the agitation that showed in his voice now, a layer of gruff to wrap back over the vulnerability.

“You say my name in your sleep sometimes.” She took another sip of her coffee as if the liquid could fortify her through the moment. He watched pink creep across her cheeks as she pressed on. “It’s not just mine. Sometimes Sam’s or even Cas’s. Mostly mine though.”

He remembered Lisa shaking him awake, saying the same thing. His whole life he had been hunting and sharing motel rooms with his dad and brother and knew for a fact he had not been one to call out in his sleep. John Winchester would have gotten him out of that habit at its first sign. But with everything he had lost the first time they fought Lucifer for the world, he had changed irrevocably. He had no idea why he had thought coming back to 2009 would have changed that. The embarrassment chafed his insides and made him feel nauseated.

“I never said anything because I knew you wouldn’t want me to know.”

“I’m sorry I wake you up,” he replied woodenly. “If I’d known, I’d have slept in another room.”

That was a lie. He couldn’t sleep well without the stupid snorts and rustles of his brother in the bed next to him, not knowing that Lucifer walked the Earth and snuck into Sam’s dreams. Right now, being a Winchester meant being haunted by nightmares.

“I don’t mind. Sometimes you settle back into what seems like a good sleep if I hold your hand for a minute or something like that.” 

The image of her slipping down from the couch, sleep still in her eyes, hair disheveled, pajama bottoms twisted on her hips, and taking his hand so gently that it soothed without waking him… he felt the image form in his mind and then creep from an image to a feeling. The feeling started in his chest, warm and bubbling, and began to spread. While he had been protecting her, close enough that nothing from the outside could get to her without going through him, she had been sleeping softly to wake up and protect him from what was inside. 

He processed this information. He took the coffee mug to the sink, dumped out the remnants, and rinsed. 

“Don’t take it the wrong way or anything. I’m just looking out for you. Same way you’d do for Sam or me or my mom. I’m not trying to be…” She trailed off, thinking, but he ignored what she was saying. Instead he let the warmth in his chest lead him to close the gap between them. He lifted the coffee mug from her, put it on the table, and met her gaze. 

“I don’t hold Sam’s hand in the middle of the night. Even if he has a bad dream, and let me tell you, he can have some doozies himself.”

She swallowed hard, and he felt himself do the same.

“You’re not a kid, and you’re not just another hunter.” He did not try to say any more because he had no idea what words he would use, no idea what he was feeling or thinking or risking. He just knew he could not lie to her with the vision of her holding his hand in his sleep still lingering in his mind. 

“I know I’m overbearing. If I had my way, you’d be a thousand miles from anywhere near all this until it was over. It’s not because I don’t see that you’re smart and resourceful as hell though. I just want you to be safe.”

She shook her head. They were close enough he could feel the air from her movement. “I want you to be safe too. Doesn’t mean I try to stop you from doing what you need to do.”

He wished he could tell her about the first 2009. He would describe how he let her dress up in a cocktail dress and face down demons to sneak into Crowley’s house and how he had let her go on a suicide mission to shoot Lucifer in the head with the Colt. If he could only tell her, she would understand he was not a chauvinist or an asshole. He was just a man who could not watch her die again.

“We’ll have this argument another day.”

“That’s what you said last time we had this conversation. Let’s just have it now.”

He shook his head. “Jo, I’m tired. I drove 20 of the last 24 hours and faced down the devil for the other couple. I got scared out of my mind at almost losing you and just found out that you’ve been holding my hand at night to keep me from losing it. I’m not up for any argument.”

Compassion won out over her stubbornness. Instead of continuing the conversation, she made the small space between them smaller by taking one of his hands. She traced her fingers along the outside edge, trailing along his skin, seeming to take in its familiarity, before folding her fingers inside his palm. Rather than holding his hand, she let him hold hers. 

“Alright. We can have the argument another day.” Now her mouth quirked at the corner, the seriousness melting into a smile. “And if you have a bad dream, I’m so nice I won’t even rag you about holding your hand.”

Dean would have kissed her even if she hadn’t tempted him with that smile. He had wanted to let himself want to kiss her for weeks, remembering that hot scene in the movie theater, and the combination of everything today had worn his defenses down to nothing. He cupped her cheek with his free hand, holding tight to her hand with the other, and leaned down to brush his lips across hers. 

“Thanks, Saint Jo. See you in bed?”

For a moment, her surprise lit her face before softening back to a smile. He recognized her unwillingness to acknowledge the kiss because then they would have to unpack it and think about it. They were too tired for that.

“I’ll probably be asleep before you even get to your patch of floor.”

“See you in the morning then.” 

He kissed her forehead this time and asked himself no questions. He could have that conversation tomorrow too.

\----------------------

Dean did not realize he was only dreaming about cooking eggs for breakfast until the angel Gabriel showed up beside him and added some sharp Vermont cheddar to the pan. 

“You’re a tricky man to find, Dean, but I sure am interested in finding you outside of your dreams.” 

“You're not the Trickster. You've got to be the archangel, Gabriel. We’ve been looking for you…” Dean was mid-sentence when Gabriel lifted a hand and literally cut him off. Though his mouth kept moving, Dean could no longer make sound. Dean thought “Angels are dicks” at the archangel as loudly as he could while his lungs creaked in protest at being silenced.

“Spare me the act. You’ve got a friend of mine’s perfume all over you.” Gabriel gave a sniff, ever theatrical, and then snapped his fingers once more. Dean felt his lungs expand again. “So how about you tell me why a regular mortal man like you is cloaked in very old, very powerful Egyptian magic?”

Dean stared at him. This question was exactly what he had expected from Lucifer, though then he had expected to be discovered in a horrible, lethal moment. 

“Oh, you’re wondering how I can tell you’ve been up to something naughty when my big brother and your pet angel couldn’t?” Gabriel half-grinned, picking up an egg from the counter and tossing it up and down in his hand absently. “Castiel is just a baby angel, and even pagan god trumps Heavenly foot soldier. And Lucifer never had much respect for, well, anyone besides himself, so he didn’t have time for pagan gods. He never liked to rub elbows with the plebes, so to speak. Me? I love me some pagan gods. I think they’re a heck of a good time.”

Dean remembered Gabriel’s masquerade as Loki. “I know.”

“Now see, you’ve piqued my interest again. How exactly do you know? Before I join your little Save the World team, I have to know just what is making you tick and how you got Ma’at involved in Daddy’s Big Prize Fight.”

So Dean explained. Being able to finally reveal the truth to someone -- even someone with whom he had as little connection as Gabriel -- was a relief. He explained Osiris’ trial and Ma’at’s approach, taking his time and spinning out each piece of relevant information. When he finished, the joking expression had completely left Gabriel’s face, and now the archangel had questions. He listened intently as Dean described the unfurling of the Apocalypse the first time, right down to explaining Gabriel’s death and Sam jumping into the cage with Lucifer in tow. 

“I once killed you repeatedly every day to teach your brother the lesson that he couldn’t save you. You’re telling me that he then went on to not only save you but the whole world?” Gabriel asked in complete seriousness.

“Yeah.” 

“I’m usually not wrong like that.”

“Happens to the best of us. So I’ve laid all my cards on the table. You’re the only one who knows everything. I didn’t want to risk time paradox by telling anyone else. I don’t really know how Ma’at’s magic works. You know everything I know. Will you help us?”

Gabriel breathed in deeply, still flipping the egg in his right hand. He tilted his head sideways.

“According to you, last time I joined your team, my brother smoked my ass within the hour. Sounds like you’re not the only one who needs to do better the second time.” He put the egg down on the counter. “I’m in. Tell Castiel to meet me at Kipsy Diner in Seattle tomorrow. I’m working a day shift there with three of the funniest sprites you could ever meet. Castiel and I will find the Horsemen we need to pop the lock on Luci’s cage.”

“What about _Cats_?” Dean asked the question even though it was irrelevant. It was hard to shake the image of an archangel in cat makeup and a sparkly leotard.

“I’m the Trickster. I have time for more than one thing at once. Tell Castiel to meet me there.” Gabriel lifted his fingers as if to snap himself out but paused first. “Oh, and one more thing, in the spirit of full disclosure. You were dreaming about your blonde when I got here. She was actually making pancakes. Hoo boy, have you got it bad for her. Not even a sex dream. Just cozy domestic bliss.”

He disappeared at the same moment that Dean snapped awake. Dean didn’t even get a chance to tell Gabriel he was a winged asshole.

Dean looked at his watch. The digital face glowed 2:30, too early to get up. Instead, he glanced over at Sam, snoring quietly, and then up at Jo, drooling ever so slightly on her pillow. Buoyed by the sight of their peace and the relief at having Gabriel officially on the team, he rolled over to catch some more shut-eye.

\--------------------

The idea scratched at Dean’s head the next day. He had sent Cas to Seattle, helped Rufus pack his truck to go take on some demons with Ellen down South, and then settled in with Bobby and Sam to do some research. Jo had drawn the short straw and headed into town on a supply run. 6 adults ran out of toilet paper at a supernatural rate. Through the whole process, the idea had been itching in him as if the pessimism and fear of yesterday had combined with the optimism of hearing from Gabriel to create some sort of crappy “carpe diem” reaction inside of him.

He wanted to take Jo out.

It was one of the stupidest ideas he had ever had. The timing was wrong in every way imaginable, the complications it could create had the potential to blow up their friendship, and the other people of the house would undoubtedly think he had lost his damn mind. He knew all of that, and yet the idea fed on other things he knew, like the fact that he wanted to touch her again more than he wanted to resist temptation and the reality that she pulled at him like a magnet with her smile.

If he was going to burn with fear over losing her, he might as well burn with some happiness of having her too.

Dean looked up from the page’s swimming letters. Concentrating was impossible; they didn’t need to do research. With Gabriel and Cas looking for the Horsemen, today was just a waiting game. Bobby and Sam felt soothed by turning to their books, always hopeful for an answer in the pages but content simply knowing a little more than when they began. Though he referred to himself as a grunt, Dean appreciated information too. He just preferred to learn by doing.

“So get this. This scholar thinks Death may not actually be a Horseman. More an embodiment of natural balance,” Sam said, leaning towards Bobby and pointing to a page. 

Bobby had tremendous restraint, and he did not answer until he himself had scanned the page. “His source?”

“The Jewish pseudepigraphical book of Baruch.” 

“Well there’s a place we haven’t looked before. I don’t have a copy, so I’m going to need to make a few phone calls, get some pages faxed over.” Bobby rolled back from his desk and headed for the kitchen. Sam never looked up from his book, so he missed the pride etched in the set of Bobby’s mouth. Dean knew the old grump liked it when one of them was quick enough to beat him to the punch.

Dean realized he had picked up a pen from the table beside him and started chewing on it. Rather than taking a mature approach to getting his brother’s attention, he twirled it around and made a whistling sound through the top of the pen. Sam glanced up and then back down. Dean whistled it again, fading out the sound slowly this time into a quiet, high-pitched whine. Sam ignored him so hard that it was palpable.

Dean shifted in his chair, putting all his weight on his right butt cheek and cracked off a fart.

“Really?” Sam popped his head up this time. “I am in the middle of a possible breakthrough, and you’re acting like a five-year-old.”

“I’ve got a question for you.”

“You could have just asked. You know that, right?”

“Gotta have a little fun in your life sometimes, Sammy. So anyway, speaking of that very thing, here’s the question.” Dean moved the pen from his mouth to the table, drumming it on the table. “What would you think if I wanted to pull a Swayze and get Baby out of the corner?”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Is Baby your car in this scenario?”

“No. In this scenario, Baby is Jo. She hasn’t been able to have much fun since we’ve been here. Hell, none of us have. And I was thinking she might like to go out on the town.”

“Yeah. She’d probably like to go out, have some fun. How does that warrant a Dirty Dancing reference?” Sam suddenly switched from confusion to heightened interest. “Oh wait a second. You’re Swayze because you’re an older romantic interest and she’s the inexperienced girl you want to show the ropes?”

“Dude, no. I’m Swayze because I’m awesome and look great in a leather jacket.” Dean bristled at being called older, probably because he really was nearly a decade older than Jo if he counted the years he had lived after this one. He decided not to count those because it made him feel better. “She’s Baby because she’s been in the metaphorical corner not having fun.”

“Metaphorical? You’re digging deep now. So you want to take Jo out and show her a good time? That sounds like something to create a heap of awkward for the three of us sharing a room each night. Especially once you hit-it-and-quit-it.” Sam hesitated.

Anger flared up hot and fast. “Hey now. Watch your mouth, Sam. It’s not like that.” 

Now Sam grinned. “Man, I knew there was something up between you two.” 

His soft understanding voice kicked back in, the same voice Dean had heard deliver rational, compassionate insight a million times before. “I think it’s a good idea. It’s been just out of reach for long enough, but you don’t sing R.E.O Speedwagon over a girl for nothing.”

Sam had the proud shit-eating grin of a little brother, and Dean actually had to grin back.

“I just heard it somewhere,” he replied around the smile on his mouth. Even with all this time spent with Jo, he had nearly forgotten about that night leaving the Roadhouse. The memory warmed him, a good memory tucked in amongst a life whose memories were a mixed bag.

“Whatever. You asked my opinion, and I say you deserve some bright spots in the dark.”

“Thanks, Sammy.” Dean slapped his hands on the tops of his thighs and stood up. “That’s one vote saying I’m not crazy. Let me see if I can go get another.”

“Wait, who said you weren’t crazy?” Sam grinned again. 

“Shut up.”

Dean walked into the kitchen. Bobby had one of the corded landline phones pulled down to his level and was going a mile a minute talking to the person on the other end, promising good rum and Japanese translation any time it was needed. The other person apparently liked those terms, and Bobby hung up after saying, “Great. I’ll expect it on my fax machine in half an hour. Don’t get drunk and pass out until you’ve sent it.”

Then he turned to Dean. “I got a copy of the damn book coming. Hopefully it tells us that Death is not actually coming to wreak Hell on Earth.”

Dean thought about Death, his lithe fingers scooping up french fries as he calmly deliberated the fate of the world. Sam was indeed onto something with his find that Death was no ordinary Horseman. 

“Hopefully. Got a question for you, Bobby.” 

“Doesn’t sound good. I’d ask if I should sit down, but that’s the only way I come these days.” Bobby rolled over to the table and motioned across from him. Dean followed and took the proffered seat. Momentarily, Bobby’s oldness -- the deepening of the lines in his face and the additional graying of his beard -- struck him. Something about seeing him in the wheelchair again remained hard, even though he should have readjusted by now.

“Well go ahead.” Bobby had a way of reading minds. “I’m not getting any younger.”

Dean skipped the pop culture references this time and went with the blunt approach.

“I want to ask Jo out tonight.”

“Okay.” Bobby looked at him expectantly.

“This is the part where you tell me I’m an idjit for even thinking about something like that in the middle of the damn Apocalypse.”

The corner of Bobby’s mouth flipped up, and he nodded. “That wasn’t too bad of an impression, but I don’t need to tell you any of that. You already know that.”

Dean didn’t want to be the kind of man who needed affirmation and reassurance to make simple decisions, but he wanted Bobby’s opinion. He hesitated and then turned his original statement into a question.

“What would you think if I took Jo out?”

Bobby adjusted his baseball cap and thought about it. 

“You’ve been watching Jo whenever you think she’s not looking. She’s been doing it too. I don’t think it is going to make either of you a bigger fool to look at each other at the same time instead.” Bobby shrugged. “It’s a bad time, but there’s no good time for a hunter. I already talked to Ellen about that.”

Dean felt a rush of gratitude to hear something akin to a blessing. His voice surprised him with its deepened burr as he replied, a throaty bit of emotion in there.

“You already talked to Ellen about me and Jo?”

“Yeah.” Bobby’s voice deepened too, and he rolled back from the table, muttering as he did so, “Someone has to make the case that you’re not a moron since you don’t do a very good job of it yourself.”

Bobby left the room, a cloud of unarticulated parental affection lingering behind him. 

Dean walked to the fridge, pulled it open, and got out a beer. He used the ring on his hand to knock off the cap and took a long swig. The scoreboard in his head showed 2 for and 0 against, with both of the 2 coming from the people he trusted the most. So he went ahead and added his own vote to the tally. 3 to 0.

He wondered if his palms would get sweaty when he asked her out. That had happened the last time he asked a girl out on a real date. Of course, he had been in high school then, and the girl in question had not been able to hold a candle to Jo.

“Are you coming in here to do some work, Romeo, or do you expect us to do it for you?” Bobby’s voice broke through Dean’s wondering, so he headed back into the living room to pretend to look for answers on printed vellum.


	7. All night long

When Jo came in with arms full of groceries, Dean met her at the door, taking that load so she could go back to the car to grab the second. He helped her put them away and debated how best to ask his question. Should he go for the blunt approach, just blurting it out with no explanation? Should he go for the careful reveal, asking his question but also quietly shaping and framing it in the safest way possible? Or should he give words to some of the tumbling, uncertain, unsteady sensations inside of him, actually tell her that he wanted nothing more than to touch her and pretend moments of happiness bore no consequences?

She was reaching up to put extra salt on the top shelf of the pantry, a sliver of pale skin visible between shirt and jeans, when he made his choice without intending to do so.

“Remember how you said you haven’t had a lot of dinner-and-a-movie experiences?”

She turned and nodded. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Remember how we were working on fixing that?”

Now her face broke into a smile, and she tucked her lower lip into her teeth, trying and failing to stifle it.

“You mean when we made the mistake of making out in a movie theater?” 

“I didn’t think it was a mistake then. Just an… experience. And after a few more weeks to think about it, I am even more certain it wasn’t a mistake. Let me take you out. We’ll drink a few drinks, maybe shoot some pool. I might even let you drag me out on the dance floor again.”

“You dragged me out on the dance floor last time.” Her smile snuck a few millimeters bigger, and he fought hard to keep his own straight face.

“Like I said, I might even let you dance with me again. Come out with me?”

The question hung in the air between them, suspended by tangled, gossamer threads of nervousness and confidence. He knew she wanted to go out with him. The tenderness of their kiss last night, so familiar and so easy, gave him confidence, but the world around them, anything but familiar or easy, kicked up the flutter of nerves. She tugged at the bottom of her shirt, revealing her own hesitation.

“I like the idea of casual dating…” Her voice trailed off.

“I sense a ‘but.’”

“But I also think honesty is important, and I don’t think we’ll be very good at casual.”

He heard the echo of all his slammed doors when she was away on a hunt, heard the whisper of her head turning to see him come back. His skin crawled with the memory of feather-light fingers on his arm during “The Weight” and rough tugs in the faded seats of a movie theater. For one wild moment, as he looked at her unguarded eyes and the practical set of her mouth, he went back to a crappy motel room with Jo’s ghost ripping out his heart. The feeling was not casual.

“Maybe we won’t. We’re not doing that well at nothing either.” He reached into the bag on the counter and pulled out two jars of spaghetti sauce. “Let Bobby and Sam eat this, and we’ll go get dinner together.”

Her face flickered through several iterations as she considered the proposal. He walked to the pantry to put the jars of spaghetti sauce away. The homeyness of having a pantry would have made him smile even if she hadn’t answered in the affirmative behind him.

“Alright. We can go get dinner.” She paused, and he could tell she was smiling without turning around. “Let Sam get online and pick where. He has good taste.”

“He may have good taste, but he didn’t pick you.” Dean cocked an eyebrow, turning around, and saw her approaching with two packages of pasta pulled from yet another bag. She slipped them onto the shelf and turned to drop a kiss on his cheek.

“Actually, I didn’t pick him.”

Dean grinned in spite of himself. “Be ready at 7? I’ve got two angels to get in touch with in the meantime.”

“Sure. I’ll be ready at 7.”

Dean thought of Bobby’s words as they both smiled; looking at each other at the same time wasn’t so bad after all.

\-----------------

Dean had never had to share a bathroom getting ready for a date before. First Jo went in and changed, then he went in and changed, and then she went back in to dry her hair or something like that. If Bobby had not decided to take a shower at the same time they were getting ready, the difficulty could have been avoided. As it was, Sam sat on a chair in the living room, spending about half of his time watching _The Maltese Falcon_ on TCM and the other half watching the pageant of Dean and Jo trying to get ready for dinner.

“Dude, could you not?” Dean had asked as Sam actually held up his fingers and rated him on his look: a six out of 10. He had been trying to use the window as a mirror to make sure his hair wasn’t sticking up like Sonic the Hedgehog. Of course Dean had tried not to chuckle because Sam’s basic niceness won out even when he was trying to be an ass; if the situations were reversed, Dean would have rated him a three, just to screw with him.

“Hey, show me how it’s done. You’re always telling me how you're a ladies' man.”

“Who’s the one going out tonight?” Dean had zinged back, but his moment of triumph had been cut short by Bobby coming into the room and asking him if he needed The Talk.

“Now, listen here, son. Now that you’ve started puberty, you might be getting some new feelings…”

“Shut up both of you,” Dean had grumbled, even though the evening’s distraction from hellfire and brimstone had Sam and Bobby both laughing, which was enough to make Dean want to smile too.

When Jo finally came out, Dean had snagged her arm and dragged her out so fast, before either of the other men could say a word, that he really did feel like a teenager. When he finally got to look at her, though, he took in the sight and knew it was one only a grown man could appreciate. Underneath her coat, flannel shirts and tight black tank tops had been replaced by some sort of cable-knit sweater that made it impossible to even see she had a shape beneath, and the mystery effect ratcheted up his blood pressure more than any amount of cleavage could have done.

“I’d have gone for sexy, but it’s winter in South Dakota. I’ve got two different kinds of gloves in my coat and a hat with earflaps in my back pocket.”

“You look fine.”

“Well, I figured that if you were helping me with romantic cliches, we would definitely be walking down snowy lanes and throwing snowballs at each other and laughing for no apparent reason.”

“It’s a date, not a jewelry commercial.” He had wrapped his arm around her and walked her to Bobby’s truck, the only vehicle he trusted in this damn weather. She had nestled against him and made his chest contract.

Dinner had been at a little Chinese place in a shack that Sam had picked after reading online (“Great, authentic food. She’ll love it!”) and their round-top table for two had barely accommodated someone of Dean’s height. One of his knees stayed wedged against the table leg, the other against hers, and the General Tso’s Chicken he ordered had so much authentic spice that he drank five glasses of water over the course of the meal. Jo did not like her Moo Goo Gai Pan, though she gamely picked out the chicken and ate it. Dean felt a certain pride in the fact that if he had picked the restaurant, they would have both enjoyed it more.

Yet the experience did not diminish its own magic. Jo talked about how she would like to own her own bar again someday, to create another hub for hunters. Dean watched her animation as she explained how she liked all of them being at Bobby’s, liked the camaraderie of hunters working together rather than always being lone wolves. She told embarrassing stories about herself in high school. Once she had gotten brave enough to ask the guy in her math class to the Homecoming dance and when he rejected her, she had gotten pissed and slugged him. He surprised himself by countering with his own embarrassing stories, such as the time he ended up being dumped in the school hallway by a blonde he liked more than he would admit. They talked about their dads, and for the first time since the H.H. Holmes case, he could hear a mention of her father or talk about his own without the crushing guilt turning his spit to sour milk.

She asked him about Hell for the first time, and he answered without detail. She listened without asking for more, and when she ducked her head to look at her plate, he saw the tears glisten in her eyes but did not feel pitied.

They touched hands as they shared food, took sips of one another’s drinks when the waitress was moving slowly, and he took note of the ways she absently touched herself. From the brush of her fingers along her collarbone, hidden beneath the wooly cable-knit, to rubbing a thumb over her own bottom lip while she thought, she projected the same physical anticipation that had him on the edge of his seat.

When he went to the register to pay, she teasingly asked who would be paying this time, but he shook his head and pulled out some cash.

“When I went into town earlier, I offered to take a couple oil changes and tire rotations off a mechanic’s hands. Told him to call Jodie Mills for a character reference. So Dean Winchester’s paying.”

Jo didn’t say anything about that as they walked out of the restaurant, but Dean did not miss the way she ducked her head to hide an emotion too nakedly honest to reveal. 

“You still want a snowy walk? It’s a sidewalk in Sioux Falls, not a lane.”

She nodded and took his hand. “I’ll take it.”

They fell into stride beside one another, and he marveled at the unfamiliar feeling of contentment. In this moment, with a woman beside him, he was Dean Winchester, the hunter who had been to Hell, the vessel of the archangel Michael, and she still looked at him with the same hungry, appreciative gaze he expected from women who knew nothing about him. She really knew him, and she still wanted to hold his hand. That was almost worth walking gingerly on wet snow in the frigid air.

“So Gabriel and Castiel are going to find the next Horseman and then we’re moving in?” Jo’s tone was hushed even though the nearest people were several yards ahead, a couple with two kids in snowsuits playing in the powder.

“Yeah. Shouldn’t take them too long now that we’ve got an archangel on the team.”

“Good. I’m not too interested in the world ending.”

“Me either.” He rubbed his thumb along the top of her hand, feeling the chilly flesh warm under his touch. As he wondered if any other parts of her needed to be warmed up, he prickled with heat that had nothing to do with the weather. His brain capitalized on the silence and danced off through a series of x-rated images.

“Do you want kids?” Jo’s question nearly stopped him in his tracks. The air in his lungs tightened, and his hand squeezed down like a vice on hers before he could catch himself. 

“You really know how to ask a question on a first date,” he said, feeling his eyes widen. 

She laughed, realizing her mistake. “Oh. Yeah. Sorry. Not like that. I was just looking over there at that family and asking you, hunter-to-hunter, if you wanted kids. Not like fishing for ‘Do you want kids with me?’ or something like that.”

His body relaxed, loosening back to its pre-panic state, but then he really wondered about the question. Oddly enough, his first instinct was to say that Sam was the one who wanted kids. Thinking of Sam as the one who craved normalcy came naturally. He thought about his year with Lisa and Ben. Lisa had been all soft curves, forehead kisses, and tenderness, a mother through and through, and her gentleness had soothed him. It was Ben, though, who had lit up something incredible inside of him. Teaching Ben how to work on a car, helping him with math problems at the kitchen table, and giving him dumb advice on girls had been the best parts of a miserable year. Dean didn’t think he would ever want the wife, the picket fence, the 9 to 5, but it was hard to imagine he wouldn’t someday want a kid like Ben again. 

“Maybe. I like kids.” He shrugged. “None of them could ever be as big of a pain in my ass as Sammy was. What about you?”

She seemed to take the question as seriously as he had, thinking about it. He looked over at the family. The mother had her little girl on her hip now, both of them bulging with puffy winter coats, while the father threw snowballs with the older kid. They looked happy.

“Maybe. I’ve never been around kids before. Did you know I’ve never even held a baby or really known a pregnant woman?”

Unbidden, the thought of Jo pregnant, her belly swollen, her cheeks flushed, her eyes snapping, appeared in his head and scared the hell out of him. He ignored it.

“Well, if you want that someday, I hope you get it.”

“Same to you, Dean Winchester. Whatever you want, I hope you get it.”

Seeing a perfect moment to steer the conversation in a direction more suited for tonight, Dean put on his best grin.

“Well, you know one thing I want?” He raised an eyebrow.

She grinned back. “Are you about to pull out a pick up line on this beautiful night?”

“That depends.” He stopped and pulled her in front of him, putting his hands on her hips. “Would a line work right now?”

“Maybe.” She dented her lower lip with her teeth, and he fought the urge to lean in and nip it himself. “How about you give it your best shot?”

He thought about the world of cheesy pickup lines, considering spinning one of the hundreds of bad bar lines she would have heard before into something funny, but instead, the laugh in her brown eyes made him honest.

“I’ve wanted to touch you again ever since you jumped out of my lap at the movie theater. So I’m just going to ask nicely. Are you going to let me?”

“That’s a damn good line.” Her cheeks turned pink. “Though fairly specific.”

“You going to answer the question?”

“I’m going to do a lot more than that, but we should probably get back to the truck first.”

His insides flipped, and his body temperature ratcheted up. The five minutes it took to walk back to the truck, open the door for her, and then get in himself seemed to take an hour, and by the time he pulled his door shut, he ran on adrenaline. The parking lot was empty, and yet the thudding of his heart was so loud he felt as if it could give them away. He turned the key in ignition to start the heat up and surreptitiously pulled the condom out of his coat pocket to tuck it in cupholder. He liked to think of it as optimistic rather than sleazy, just as he opted to think of the truck as exciting rather than adolescent.

Jo leaned into him, coat already discarded on the floor.

“Ask the question again.” The huskiness in her voice stroked him without hands, and his body reacted, muscles tensing and pants tightening. The cold interior of the car showed their breath in wispy clouds that mixed in the space between them. 

“Are you going to let me touch you?” 

“Yes.” Her voice promised debauchery.

He grabbed her and pulled her to him, sinking his mouth onto hers. His fingers looped into her hair, settling into the silky strands, as he tasted her. She tasted like sex. When she ran her tongue along his lower lip, he tugged at her hair, pulling her head back enough to grant him full access to her mouth. Hot fingers pulled at coats and dug into the remaining clothing, frustrated to have anything in the way of skin contact.

He pulled down the neck of her sweater, revealing milky collarbone. He wanted to lick, just flick his tongue against the skin, but if the ferocity of her hands taught him anything, it was that she played dirty. He used his teeth instead, and she moaned softly. That sound sent his hands straight for the hem of her sweater. He wrestled it up. She grabbed with him, and he heard the rip of seams being pulled too hard. 

“Damn, Jo,” he muttered, taking in the sight of her. In the cold air, gooseflesh covered her skin, and her nipples hardened enough to stand out against the lacy black of her bra. He moved toward her only to bang his knee on the gear shift and his heavy boots on his door. She shifted too, and he heard her shoes patter the dashboard. The sensual set of her face turned to a half-grin. 

“Pause to take our shoes off?”

It should have ruined the moment. Instead, they both smiled and then did just that. They paused to take their shoes and socks off, a small gesture of readiness in preparation for where this encounter was going. He also pulled off his coat, flannel shirt, and jeans, leaving only grey tee-shirt and black boxers between himself and the chilly air. The space separating them felt like too much. He slid closer and caught her by the hips.

“Come here.” 

She shivered against him at the growl of his voice, pulling herself onto his lap. He smiled, intrigued by such a pleasurable reaction to sound. He needed to try that again.

Jo put her mouth on his, and this time she ground against him as she kissed, working his erection from interested to urgent beneath her eager hips. Inexperience with romance did not translate to sexual innocence, and just as in the movie theater, she wound his desire up, sending it racing to levels that made him want to rip off her jeans and plunge into her. 

Instead, he enjoyed the access available now, cupping her breast in his hand, savoring the erotic weight and bringing his thumb up to stroke the waiting nipple. It tightened more under his touch, beading to pebble-hardness, pressing against the lace as if asking to be freed. He dipped his head to kiss along the top of her breast, caressing the skin and edge of the cup while his thumb teased the nipple. She dropped her head back, the throatiness of her moan stopping his breath in his lungs. He replaced his thumb with his mouth.

When he held the nipple gently in his teeth and then sucked hard through the lace, her moan rattled the inside of the truck.

When she managed to stop those incredible sounds from escaping her lips, she grabbed his shirt and pulled it upward, scraping her fingernails up his torso along the way. Her eagerness galvanized him, and he somehow had it over his head in an instant.

He reached down to unzip her jeans, ready to have the coarse fabric out of his way, and slid his mouth back up beside her ear. He spoke without whispering, letting his words move boldly out into the air.

“I’m ready to have you naked, Jo.” She shuddered against him, lifting her hips to let him guide her out of her jeans. He greedily snatched the underwear with the pants. He copped a feel of her butt, sinking his fingers into the flesh for one long, satisfying moment, before discarding the jeans on the floorboard. Her tongue slid up his neck, and the flames burning in the air, fogging up the windows, grew. She leaned back, grinding against him, a deliberate smirk on her lips, and unhooked her own bra. The audacity rocketed over him. She took charge, nibbling his ear, putting her hands between them to stroke his dick through the thin fabric of his boxers, audaciously touching herself, and the whole affair threatened to end in seconds, every muscle in his body keying toward release.

He caught her hands. “My turn.”

Again, his voice seemed to freeze her. He guided her back to lay across the bench seat, taking in the sight of so much skin and trying not to bang into the steering wheel. Then let his tone give him the time to enjoy her without risking a quick finish.

“God, you’re beautiful.” The slightest of shudders. He could do better than that. He put his hands at her thighs and parted them. He allowed himself a long look. 

“Let me just see how you feel.” A gasp that sent goosebumps back over her skin. She liked it direct. His pulse surged.

He crooked a finger between her legs, finding her clit. She groaned. He added his voice. 

“Now that’s what I want. Right there.” Another crook, a finger inside. She moaned from her toes, tightening around him, and the realization of what that tightness on his finger meant for penetration made him groan too. He played, dragging her own wetness over her thighs, dallying in and out of her, rubbing, smelling the hot, earthy scent of arousal, using his other hand to stroke himself, until the constriction in his throat made it hard for him to breathe. She bucked her hips into his fingers, and he actually had to grab the steering wheel to steady himself, his own body threatening to betray him. She grabbed onto his steadying hand so hard that her nails left crescents in the skin. 

“Dean, now.” 

He had his boxers off and a condom on so fast he did not notice any individual motion, but he did notice when she splayed her knees wide, wrapped her hands together behind his neck, and gave him the devil’s own grin. 

“C’mhere.”

He guided into her slowly, each millimeter making it harder not to just abandon himself in the moment, but when he looked at her face, the world seemed to slow to a stop. In an instant, he memorized her. Her parted lips, bright eyes, flushed cheeks, halo of blonde waves… they erased the cramped truck cab, discarded winter gear, the pain in his elbow that kept hitting the dashboard, and the sight of her like this became a part of him he was not ashamed to admit he would never forget.

Then she bucked her hips to him and sank his cock to her depths. He heard a guttural groan and realized it had come from him.

Her body gripped him, accommodating him even as he was too big, and the sensation was so delicious he breathed carefully, cautiously, not letting himself take in the bounce of her breasts as he stroked into her or the shuddery moans slipping from her lips. He tried to look at the ceiling, clenched his muscles, controlled his motions so tightly that it took every bit of his concentration. 

She rolled and rocked with him, let out a sharp cry that portended the height of her pleasure, but then she stopped. Pulling him down to her, she tilted her lips against his ear, hot breath and wet mouth sending a shiver down his spine.

“That was nice. Now _fuck_ me.”

Every inch of his body tremored with the dirtiness of that pretty mouth against his skin. She took advantage of that moment of shock. She scraped her nails down his back and added one polite little word.

“Please.”

He had never been one to resist good manners.


	8. Ain't got too much to say

“You smell like sex.” Jo skimmed her lips over his neck before pulling her sweater back on over that lace bra he liked so much. Her statement rang true; the whole cab of the truck had that carnal scent. He associated the smell with all the best things in life, and he took an opportunity to kiss her back. Opting for the first available patch of skin, he got her cheek.

“So do you. Is this the part where you sell me a line about how this was a mistake and you have too much self-respect for sex?”

Despite himself, he watched her for her answer. Jo might have been hesitant about giving him the inch to start dating, but the mile they just went together had been all eagerness. His nerves buzzed with after-glow, his chest ached faintly from some inexplicable tenderness.

“No. Hell no. You might make me regret it, but right now…” She grinned. “I needed that.”

He bristled; the tenderness in his chest snapping from soft to defensive under the whip of those words. The comment was the same one every hunter made to his buddies at some point -- “I need to get laid” or “It’s been too damn long” or “Look at the rack on that one” -- because their lives were full of the worst shit imaginable and sex bought a measure of happiness and relief for free. He knew that, knew how often he had said and thought the same thing. Hell, he had jacked off two days ago, thinking about how he missed sex. But the thought of Jo looking around the world with the same hungry, half-lidded eyes made him irrational.

“I guess it has been a couple weeks since you picked your car up from Travis.” His words closed in around themselves at the end, an accusation lurking under them. 

If he had hoped she would not sink to his level, he was wrong. Her eyes flashed as she zipped her jeans, and she slid over to the passenger seat where she could level her gaze on him more easily. She stared him down, challenged him to even go there.

“You’re right it has.” 

He bit his tongue, knowing he should not rise to the dare in that tone, but his stubborn streak beat reason. Even the thought that she could have slept with someone else while they danced around one another at Singer Salvage Yard, while he busted his ass every day to keep her alive so that he would be the only one to ever know what could have been… He knew she couldn’t know what he went through, and yet in the same thought, he blamed her for not understanding. He spoke and regretted each word individually as it escaped.

“Could you wait to get inside or did you screw him in a truck too?”

Jo flinched as if she had been slapped. Dean braced himself for her retaliation, but none came. Instead she ducked her head to tie her boots, lacing them back onto her feet, grabbed her coat, and got out of the truck. The door shut without slamming. The moment of silence after someone leaves always bore a terrible finality.

He froze, still waiting for a fiery retort that wasn’t to come, and then he hastily grabbed for his own shoes, stuffing his feet into them without socks and jumping out of the car after her.

“Jo, wait.”

Snow swirled down around her, and she had her cell phone to her ear.

“Yeah, I’m starting walking from the restaurant you picked… Yep. My coat’s thick… Thanks. See you when you get here.”

She hung up.

“Jo, I didn’t…” 

She whirled.

“You didn’t mean to imply that I just hump whoever gets closest?” 

He opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off. “Spare me. I get it. Even if you don’t.”

“What exactly don’t I get?” His tone was still angry.

“You’re mad because you don’t want me to be a hunter. That’s what this was tonight: a chance for you to pretend I was just a girl with a crush on you. You took me out on a date, got laid, and you wanted to go home and feel proud of yourself. You don’t want the reality of me to clash with your mental image where I wear dresses and bake pie and do what you want. I’m pretty sure you’ve had your share of sex without me over the years -- correct me if I’m wrong -- but I’m supposed to have waited until being holed up with me for a couple months made you horny enough to ask me out?”

Apologies were not his forte, and if the anger swelling in his chest was any indication, he wasn’t sorry anyway. Jo could have just smoothed it over, let his one stupid jealous comment slide, but instead, she had blown it up into something bigger and nastier. She had no idea what she was talking about. He didn’t want her to be someone else; he wanted her to be safe, damn it. Only someone as stubborn as fucking Jo Harvelle could turn him into a villain for that. The anger felt good, hot on a cold night, and he embraced it.

“Whatever, Jo.”

He walked back to the truck and got in, slammed the door behind him so hard the dashboard rattled. With the truck rumbling under him, he watched Jo in the headlights, marching up the sidewalk. When she got far enough away he could no longer see her, he pulled forward some, a few yards every couple minutes, to watch her even as he wanted to grab her with both hands and shake her. By now, Sioux Falls showed no signs of other people or life. All the town’s signs were turned off, carpet rolled up for the night.

“What does she fucking know? She has no idea what I’ve gone through for her. She has no fucking idea.”

Even as he muttered under his breath, the memories of the hardware store hit him as they hadn’t in weeks. Her pale, shaky hands around the detonator replaced her smiles and sighs tonight. He rubbed his hands up and down his face, trying to scrub it away, but he heard her agony as the Hellhound ripped into her, saw the blood welling up through her clothes, smelled the sickly sweet scent of death around her. What did she know about what made him act the way he acted? She had never seen him die and been helpless to stop it. If she had, maybe she would expect him to do what she wanted to keep it from happening again.

A little voice in his head reminded him that he cut her out of his life before he went to Hell, but that hadn’t stopped her from knowing where he was. She might know a little something about helplessness too.

He ignored that little voice in favor of the louder outbursts from anger.

Ahead he saw another of the salvage yard’s old rusty pickups pull over, emergency flashers responsibly blinking, and then saw Sam get out. Dean could practically hear his little brother asking her if she was okay, offering some words of comfort, and when he watched Sam pull her into a hug, he resisted the urge to get out and punch him; no one else needed to comfort her right now. The corner of his mouth smiled involuntarily. Violence sounded soothing. He wondered briefly how far it was to Stolley State Park in Nebraska and if he could kick the ass of a man who made Sam look normal-sized.

Once Sam and Jo got back in the truck, he followed them at Sam’s cautious pace over the snowy, deserted roads, pulled into the salvage yard behind them, and then waited for them to both go inside. He stalled in the truck for a few minutes, stupidly unwilling to see either of them.

The digital display flashed midnight when he made his way inside. The living room floor was empty; Sam stretched out on the couch instead, no Jo in sight. He had a copy of some book called _A Thousand Splendid Suns_ open on his lap, but he closed it as Dean walked in.

“Hey. You alright?” Sam’s forehead furrowed with concern.

“Jo alright?” Dean reverted to monosyllabic tendencies in situations like this.

“She’s upset and might be about as stubborn as you, but yeah, she’ll be alright. She’s going to sleep in Ellen’s room tonight. You want to talk about it?”

“No. I want to pass out and sleep.”

“I’m sorry it didn’t go well.”

“Not your fault. I knew it was a bad freakin’ idea. Hunters don’t date.”

Sam didn’t answer, and Dean didn’t bother to go brush his teeth before shedding his extra layers of clothing and bunking down on the floor.

Sleep refused to come right away, and he spent a while staring at the ceiling trying not to think about anything.

\-----------------

Bobby nudged him awake, a cup of coffee in one hand and a piece of paper in the other. 

Dean’s head hurt like a hangover, the anger, regret, and embarrassment dragging on him like a night of drinking. Sunlight snuck through the dusty blinds, and because of that, he knew that the old adage that everything would look better in the morning was a crock of shit. He sat up and rubbed his eyes.

“Best get up, boy. Your angel was poking around in my dreams last night.” Bobby held out the mug.

“Which one?” Dean accepted it and took a sip. Lukewarm and black as coal. Bobby had obviously been awake for a while.

“Gabriel.” Something in his tone made Dean look back at him, raising an inquisitive eyebrow, but when Bobby continued talking, his words did not account for whatever caused the electric undercurrent buzzing in his voice. “Our angel brigade says they’ve found Famine. They’ll be here soon.”

“Awesome.” 

“There’s a reason I’m letting you know what we’re about to be up against before I hand you this piece of paper. I’m sorry you had a bad night last night. Don’t know whose fault it is, but whatever happened, it doesn’t matter right now. It’s the end of the world. We’ve got stuff to do.” Bobby held the paper out gruffly. “I’ll wake Sam up.”

Dean took the permission to take a moment for himself. Normally he would have woken Sam up, but Bobby didn’t do soft for no reason. If he was offering, then the piece of paper wasn’t good. Dean grabbed clothes and headed into the bathroom. He took another gulp of his coffee and just looked at it. Plain notebook paper, ripped out of a composition book, had never looked so menacing. 

He flipped it open, and her handwriting scrawled across the page, almost manly in its messiness. 

_Gone to help Mom and Rufus with the demons in Missouri. You owe me an apology. My apology’s here. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you how I was feeling after sleeping with you. I’m an adult, and I should have been able to tell you I’m scared to death of how you make me feel. I’m also sorry I expected too much of you. You never asked me for anything except a date. See you soon._

The words _I’m also sorry I expected too much of you_ sliced into his insides, spilling the bile from his stomach out into his body. He read the words on the page again, the closest thing to a confession of love he had ever received. She had just been offering up some smart defense, casually joking to deflect what she was feeling, and he had been the one to bring matches and torch the barrier. _I should have been able to tell you I’m scared to death of how you make me feel._ Despite everything, he felt something tender unfurl inside of him reading that. He folded the paper and got dressed.

Then he put the note in his pocket. He had no idea what he was feeling, but he was feeling a lot of it.

When he walked back out into the living room, Castiel and Gabriel had arrived. Dean didn’t know if angels just dug trench coats or if there was some other explanation, but Gabriel wore one now as well, a black one. His jaw set more seriously than Dean had ever seen. As Dean got closer, he could hear what Sam was saying.

“So we have to assume Lucifer will be there if Famine is?”

“Yes. With War out of commission, my brother may not be going too far from his pets. I cannot sense him yet, but we should be prepared,” Gabriel said.

“What’s the contingency plan for if Lucifer shows up?” Bobby asked. 

“Run,” Gabriel said it simply, so quickly that it sounded like a joke, but no one laughed.

“Does archangel trump Horseman?” Sam asked. Castiel looked over at Gabriel and then answered for him.

“Yes. Archangels are primordial beings shaped from God’s most divine power. However, archangels are not permitted to interfere with the Horsemen. That was not part of God’s plan. We do not think Gabriel will be able to take the ring, though he may be able to protect us while we do so.”

Dean admired Cas’s loyalty. The angel had been alone since abandoning Heaven for the Winchesters, and the relief he felt at being back on a team with a celestial being was palpable. He could have simply said that Gabriel was going to be no help, but instead, he had framed it positively. He might only be a Heavenly foot soldier, but his dedication to the people around him, be they human or angel, made him something special. There was a reason God had put Castiel back together more than once.

“Basically, I might go limp around a Horseman. We don’t know. Castiel should be fine. Daddy never intended the little people to be near the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” Gabriel turned and looked at Bobby. Bobby held his chin out, that same look on his face that Dean had seen earlier, and Gabriel snapped his fingers. “We’re going to need everyone ready to go. Lieutenant Dan, you’ve got new legs.”

Bobby gripped the arms of his wheelchair and pushed himself up. His arms shook, his mouth tightened, and he stood on two legs. He swayed, but no one dared to say a word about it. He turned eyes on Gabriel that Dean could not see, but he heard a knot of emotion in Bobby’s voice. He suspected there were tears in the man’s eyes as he kicked the wheelchair backwards out of his way. Dean understood now what he had heard in Bobby's voice earlier, that buzzing hope below the spoken words; Gabriel must have told him in the dream that he was going to be able to walk again.

“Thank you.” Bobby extended his hand, and Gabriel took it. They shook as equals, eye to eye, an archangel and an old hunter who had earned a blessing.

“Okay,” Dean spoke up now, and all eyes turned on him. He watched the faces that had been quietly joyful shift as they saw him. An ominous rumble prickled through him. “So I missed the first part of the conversation. Where are we headed?”

No one answered him for a few seconds, and the answer came to him the same time Sam finally spit it out.

“Missouri. Famine seems to be the reason for the demon surge Ellen and Rufus went to check out.”

Dean could tell by their faces that no one needed to be told Jo was on her way to join her mother and Rufus. Her note weighed like lead in his pocket.

A train roared in his head as he asked, “Where in Missouri?”

Castiel, Bobby, and Sam looked surprised by the question, as if unsure how it could possibly matter, but Gabriel, who knew exactly who this Dean Winchester was, met his gaze.

“Carthage,” Gabriel answered.

Dean felt the world fall out from under him. He had thought he would never have to go back. Jo and Ellen had died in Carthage, Missouri.


	9. Think I'll go back to the city

Carthage, Missouri looked exactly the way Dean remembered. He took in the buildings, a mix of old and older, a whole town in need of a paint job. The streets stood barren, cars abandoned in the middle of the roadways, parked sideways halfway over the curbs. It matched the imagined look of a town after God had taken the righteous, but Dean knew that no celestial being had swooped in front above to save anyone here. God couldn't be bothered with his children anymore.

Gabriel offered a smoother ride than Castiel, and he had dropped them on the street in Carthage without causing Dean to feel as if his bowels had turned to stone. They planned to face Famine with the barest traces of plans, all contingent on tiny aspects of the unknown.

John Winchester would be rolling over in his grave to know his kids were going into anything so unprepared.

As they started walking, Dean looked into the window of the nearest building. Inside the diner, people shoveled food into their mouths, licking pie plates and slurping sweet tea from the buckets it was made in. A gaggle of people rutted on the floor, surrounded by gluttonous patrons. The mixture of penises and vaginas, of licking and thrusting and groping, blurred through the window. Dean’s stomach flipped inside out, nausea rising up.

“Christ Almighty,” Bobby muttered. “How exactly are we still standing?”

“I’m shielding you,” Gabriel said. “We’ll see how long that lasts.”

Dean knew he was the only one who could truly appreciate what that meant. He remembered Castiel viciously devouring burger after burger, insatiable for red meat, and Sam standing smeared with demon blood after slitting throats of human meatsuits, desperate to do anything for a drink. Famine’s terrible power had brought them both to their knees. He had only escaped the feeling because he wanted nothing then, but this was a different 2009. He had a feeling he wanted much more than he had the first time.

They must look a sight, walking five wide down the street, angels serving as bookends for three men carrying shotguns and wearing grim expressions. Dean wondered if they should have tried subtle. Beside him, Sam had his phone to his ear. He had been dialing and redialing Jo’s number repeatedly, trying to get a hold of her to tell her to turn around. Dean had given up ten minutes ago, worried she might just be dodging his calls.

“Lucifer’s here. Somewhere.” Gabriel, on Dean’s other side, spoke without any tension in his corporeal form, but Castiel looked at him with something akin to panic. Gabriel must be transmitting fear on an angelic level rather than a terrestrial one.

“Can you find him?” Bobby asked.

“Not unless he wants to be found.”

“Jo, thank God. Where are you?” Sam said into his phone, and Dean turned to watch him with his heart in his throat. “Slow down. Yeah. We’re in Carthage too. Famine’s here…. Where are they?... We’re on our way.”

He hung up.

“She’s with Rufus and Ellen. She needs help. They’re in the Liquor Store on the corner of 2nd and Broad,” Sam said. He turned to Dean to add the piece of critical explanation. “She caught a red-eye here last night.”

Dean thought of her sneaking out in the wee hours of the morning, stepping around them without waking them and finding airline employees she could bribe with hustled cash. He wondered if she had looked out the window of the plane into the darkness. He wondered if she knew he was afraid of flying, if she was even aware of the irony of her choosing a plane to get away from him.

“Can you poof us there?” Dean asked. Gabriel shook his head.

“Not going to risk that with big bro in the vicinity. We can walk. It’s not fa--” Gabriel froze mid-word. He turned his face up to the grey sky, closed his eyes, and then opened them again. “He’s trying to find me. I’ll keep shielding you, but I need to put some distance between us.”

Just like that, the ace up their sleeves vanished.

They carried on, for there was nothing else to do. Dean took on a breakneck pace, several strides ahead of anyone else, and tried not to let the terror in. For every fear sneaking into his brain, he found an action thought to replace it: find Jo, help her, find Famine, get his ring. He repeated the mantra of four items in his head to stay calm, but his stride became a near-run as he saw the signs for 2nd Street and a glowing neon sign boasting Beer and Spirits Depot. A few blocks down stood the hardware store, and coward though it made him, Dean could not look that direction.

The sidewalk outside the liquor store was littered with occupants; at first, Dean thought the people might be passed out, empty and broken glass all around them, but as he neared one body, he saw the beginning signs of post-mortem bloat. The middle-aged man's stomach had expanded to near bursting, his intestines pushing up through the flesh from the inside, a deadly coil of engorgement.

“Do you think…” Sam muttered, and Dean nodded.

“Yeah. They drank themselves to death.” 

Dean pushed the door open. Maybe half a dozen people lay on the floor in here, also dead. It made sense, Dean supposed. For the people who had craved food, death would be slow, torturous, days in the diner or grocery store overloading their systems. For the people who hungered for liquor or oblivion, death came faster. 

He heard Jo’s voice coming from the back storeroom.

“Mom, no. No more. Put it down. Put it down.” She sounded desperate. He hurried into the storeroom.

Ellen and Rufus sat together, slumped on one another’s shoulders. They looked more dead than alive. Rufus had sweated through his shirt, and the slick sheen on his flaccid face did not hide the line of drool coming from his mouth. Ellen retained her consciousness, but a line of liquor dribbled down the front of her shirt from her lips. The half-empty bottle in her hand dangled, and she tried with strength she did not have to lift it to her lips. Jo knelt beside her, pleading with her to hold on, and then turned a stricken face upward to Castiel. 

“Cas, help. I think they fought as hard as they could, but there’s too much in their systems,” she pleaded. Cas looked at Dean, eyes on him as he answered. Dean had not seen him too affected to look directly at someone in a long time.

“I have been cut off from Heaven’s power too long. I cannot heal them.” 

“We can’t let them die,” Sam said. “Bobby, can you get them to a hospital? Anywhere but here?”

Bobby nodded. “There’s more abandoned cars out there than I can shake a stick at.” His voice held steady, but Dean saw the tick of his jaw under his beard. Bobby’s life had been carved by tragedy, and two of his oldest friends lay before him, clinging to life with hands too tired to hold on much longer. 

“Help me move them.” Bobby knelt down for Rufus first, putting his arm across his shoulders, and pulling him up. Both men shook, one from liquor-induced weakness and the other with the tremors of atrophied muscle forced into action. Dean took a step toward Ellen, but Jo was already gathering her mother over her shoulder, rising to her feet with steely strength. The two able-bodied carried their drunken loved ones out. Castiel looked at Sam and Dean. His blue eyes burned grave.

“Jo is not under Gabriel’s protection. She will be ravenous for whatever she hungers,” Cas warned.

“I know,” Dean said. 

The three of them walked shoulder to shoulder out into the street. Jo stood alone, watching the tail lights as Bobby hit the gas in his stolen car. He must have hit the turn onto 3rd Street at 60 miles per hour. From behind, Dean saw Bobby’s shotgun hanging in Jo's right hand, her other hand lifted up over her mouth. She must be fighting not to cry. The urge to comfort her, to pretend they did not have to see this hunting trip through and whisk her to safety, hit him hard enough to clench his fists at his sides. He didn't want her to be here. It wasn't supposed to be like this, not again. He was supposed to make a better world for her this time around.

Sam, however, took the steps toward her to put a hand on her shoulder, offering comfort in his usual way.

“They’re going to be okay, Jo. No one’s better than Bobby.”

“How’d he get his legs back?” Her voice was hollow.

“We’ve got an archangel on our side.” Sam’s voice had no happiness, hanging as empty as hers. “Listen, Jo. Gabriel has shielded us from Famine, but you’ve seen what it’s doing to everyone else. Your mom and Rufus must have been incredible, to fight it so long. What are you craving? We need to keep you from it.”

Dean watched her turn to look up at his brother, holding her head carefully so as not to see him. “I’ve got it under control, Sam.”

“Okay.” Sam’s gentleness did not waver, but his fingers tightened on her shoulder as if he could transfer strength to her. “We need to find Famine now.”

“Find Famine?” A cold, cruel voice rang out, eager enough to sound almost giddy. Dean looked up the street to the sound. Meg Masters stood there, one hip cocked out and a grin wiggling on her lips. She lifted her hand and wiggled her fingers in a wave that a civilian might have seen as flirtatious but that Dean recognized as a taunt. He wanted to pull his demon-killing knife out of his coat and savage her, but the cold dread held him steady. He remembered the kind of company Meg had liked for traveling in 2009: Hellhounds.

“I would have thought you boys would have been smart enough to be running from Famine. Wait a second. Where are my manners? Sammy, Deano, I didn’t say hi to your friend.” She ran her tongue across her top teeth in a blatantly sexual gesture. “You are a pretty little thing. Remember me?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t,” Jo replied, menace edging her tone. Dean admired the spunk.

“Well, I remember you, pumpkin. I had you all trussed up. Of course I was in Sam then, so you might have kind of liked it.”

“Gosh, Meg, I didn’t remember you being so talkative,” Dean interrupted now. “Shouldn’t you be running along to your boss?”

At the mention of Lucifer, Meg’s face changed. The twisted amusement she typically bore turned to a terrible reverence. Her dark eyes snapped like kindling catching fire.

“He’s here. Famine gets to work under a little extra protection after you lot were so mean to War. Lucifer is here to bring the promised land for us.” Her eyes flickered black as she turned her gaze to Castiel. “You know that, don’t you, angel? Your big brother’s going to save the world. Drinks all around!” 

“Silence.” Cas’s deep burr sounded like that of a garrison commander now. It contrasted sharply with Meg’s cruel playfulness. She shuddered pleasurably without losing her grin.

“That’s a very husky voice you’ve got there, Clarence, but I’m just not sure you have the juice to back it up. I hear you’re cut off from Heaven right now.”

“And you are cut off from Hell,” Cas said. 

Meg laughed, long and loud, and then crooked her finger at him. “Follow me. I’ll show you where your precious Gabriel is losing a fight with our Savior, if you can keep up.”

Her vessel threw its head back, the thick black smoke roaring out of her throat into the air. Dean opened his mouth to tell Cas no, but the angel was gone, chasing the demon. His money was on Cas in a prize fight between those two; however, it would have been nice for their team not to have dwindled from two angels to none. He looked at Sam and Jo. Jo looked back now, no evidence remaining of her previous evasiveness. In fact, her eyes on his stopped his breath in his chest. 

She was losing her fight with Famine, and he knew now what she wanted.

“If you’re going to find Famine, I’m coming with you,” she said firmly. “No matter where you’re going, I’m coming with you.”

Dean’s heart felt like it was going to break in two. She wanted him to let her come. She craved his respect and partnership, more than her favorite food or burning liquor or hot sex; she just wanted him not to leave her behind. 

“Let’s start walking and see what we can find,” he replied. They fell into stride together, and Jo walked a little too close to him, brushing against him with each stride. If he hadn’t been holding a shotgun, he might not have been able to resist the temptation to take her hand. He was scared for her.

Then he heard the growling. It began low, in the distance, and he found himself looking around for something he knew he could not see. Neither Sam nor Jo seemed to hear it, but he knew it immediately. You cannot spend forty years in Hell and not become familiar with the unearthly rumble of Hellhounds, sniffing out their prey. They could smell a targeted soul from any distance on Earth or below, so they tracked eternally, hunting for perpetuity. They neither slept nor ate nor stopped. Their growls and howls were the soundtrack to Hell.

And they were coming now. He heard a howl, so low and quiet that he wondered if it occurred on some frequency his companions could not hear, a frequency inside of him turned on by time served in Hell’s Army. The hounds had no reason to have Jo’s scent; she was not a part of this. Nor would they have been sicced on Lucifer’s one true vessel.

But Dean Winchester, the man who escaped Hell… his scent would have been rubbed on their blankets as little hellpuppies.

Hunting meant being afraid, always, in a million tiny unacknowledged ways, and yet on some level, Dean wondered if he had ever been this afraid before. It was happening again. The details were different -- Ellen en route to a hospital, Famine in Carthage instead of Death, Gabriel’s presence -- but once again, he could hear Hellhounds near the hardware store on 2nd Street. His lungs turned to ice.

Then he heard the growl that sounded totally normal, a growl that made both Sam and Jo jump. They were here.

“Hellhounds,” Sam breathed like a particularly nasty curse word.

All hell broke loose.

Dean shouted for them to run without even knowing which directions contained hounds or how many of them there were out there. He heard Sam get a round off even faster than he could. If the moment had been quieter, Dean would have been proud of those reflexes; Sam was a fighter. Dean’s muscle memory kicked over even his adrenaline. He chambered his round, shot, reloaded, and did it again. The hot breath of a hound to his right made him tilt his shotgun down, trying to figure out how to aim close without catching himself. A spurt of black blood fell across his pants and ended the debate. He looked over to see Jo reloading. 

“In here!” Sam shouted from the door of the hardware store, wrenching it open.

Dean’s military upbringing calculated the moment. Jo already moved at half-speed, chambering another round into her shotgun, and was about 25 feet from the door. She would be through the doorway in about 3 seconds if she moved to a spring. He was maybe 15 feet behind, two more seconds from the door if he kept facing the other direction to assess the threat. Another three seconds would be needed to get Sam in and the door shut. 

8 seconds.

“Go!” He shouted. His mental timer ticked them off as Jo exploded through the doorway at full pace. Good girl. He made his pace as well, darting through the doorway. Sam turned to pull the door shut when he screamed in agony. His pants ripped, the skin through them bloodied, and he went down hard. Dean couldn’t risk a shotgun’s spread next to his brother, but his one-handed pull and fire of his pistol happened instinctively. He heard Jo fire at the same time, and in front of him, the air filled with black and grey spray, a mix of blood and brains that splattered onto Sam. Dean kicked at the space in front of him, feeling his foot connect and move a warm, limp body. Sam pulled himself through the door, the leg dragging behind him uselessly, and Dean slammed it shut behind them. 

They panted for a moment, breathing in that second’s relief of no one being dead.

“Jesus.” Jo broke the silence first. “Everybody okay?”

Dean followed her question to his brother. Sam braced himself against a shelf, clutching his leg with his other hand, and with every passing second, the adrenaline seemed to be rushing out of him. In its place, pain and weakness crept in. He slumped lower, barely upright. Dean closed the space between them and put himself under Sam’s arm. He held him across his shoulders the same way he had a thousand times before. _He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother_ always came to mind at moments like this, appropriate and inappropriate all at once. 

“I’ve got you, Sammy. I’ve got you,” he whispered the words, volume unnecessary between them. They eased Sam over to the main counter and helped him sit down. He extended his good leg himself; Dean took the grisly task of straightening the useless mangled leg forward as well.

His commanding voice took charge of the moment. “Jo, get some rags. They’re on a shelf somewhere down to the right. Something to clean it with might not be bad either.”

“How do you know…” She began to question but then caught herself, succumbing to his tone, hurrying over to find the needed items. Dean appreciated not having to come up with a lie right now. The truth was that he had once stuffed those rags into a bomb to blow her up.

He knelt at Sam’s side and investigated the leg. He pulled his knife out of his pocket and sliced the denim out of his way, opening a swath from upper-thigh to knee and examining the damage. The puncture wounds from the teeth extended down into the flesh through the skin and muscle. The bone beneath showed in fragments. Dean made a face. A leg bone shattered by compression might take out a grown man, but without arterial damage, it was not life-threatening. Relief flowed from his extremities into his core. 

“You might end up with a limp. Chicks dig smart guys with limps.”

“Shut up, Dean,” Sam hissed through his clenched teeth. Sweat beaded on his pale forehead. “You and Jo are going to have to go find Famine without me.”

“Let me get you fixed up before we worry about that,” Dean said. Jo moved back into view, rags in one hand and a bottle in the other. He could see the rubbing alcohol label from here. 

“It’s going to hurt like a bitch, but it’s all I could find.” She knelt down. “I can clean this if you want to get the perimeter. I don’t see any more of them.”

Dean let her set to work and did the same himself, grabbing jugs of road salt from the shelves. He listened for growls from one direction -- he heard none -- and to little hisses and grunts of muffled pain from the other direction. Jo talked to Sam while she cleaned the wounds, telling him she was doing okay holding out against Famine, her wants were nothing too dangerous, but she also applied no unreasonable mercy. If a puncture mark needed to be cleaned, she was vigorously applying the rubbing alcohol to it. Sam restrained himself, but he dropped a few choice curse words into the quiet moments.

Dean marveled over the reality of Jo being alive. Whether he had done it or God had lent an unseen hand… he had no idea. He just knew that the Hellhounds in Carthage had not gotten her this time. He should have been thanking his lucky stars for that and getting her the hell out of here.

But they needed to stop Famine. The world still hung in the balance, and he knew that if given the choice, she would die to save it. He thought of her note, folded somewhere in his coat pocket: _I should have been able to tell you I’m scared to death of how you make me feel._

He tossed the last salt jug aside, perimeter secure, and moved back over to them.

“I’ll live,” Sam answered Dean’s unasked question. “But Jo was right. It hurts like a bitch.”

“Think you can shoot anyone with black eyes who comes through that door?” Dean grabbed his shotgun off the counter and held it out to Sam. He felt a flutter of concern about leaving his brother behind. He didn’t know if he was more afraid of the demons getting Sam or Sam getting the demons. Dean was just going to have to have faith that Gabriel’s protection would keep Sam’s famine at bay.

“Yeah.”

“Then I guess me and Jo better go kick Famine’s ass,” Dean replied. When he looked her way, she was already standing back up, pumping another round into her shotgun’s chamber. 

“Let’s go.”

His insides crawled up into his throat in the face of risking her again.

\------------------

They followed the tug of Jo’s famine to the source itself, winding over the empty streets and down alleys, until it became apparent where they were headed. The only building left in front of them was an elementary school. Its sign boasted eager primary colors and a cheery “Reading is cool” slogan, and the bushes on either side of it still had all of their leaves in the mild Missouri winter. It hardly looked like the place to battle a Horseman of the Apocalypse.

“Think he’s in there?” Dean asked. He carried Sam’s sawed-off in one hand and a jug of road salt in the other.

Jo’s knuckles on her shotgun whitened, hands tightening even more, and she nodded. She tried to tighten her jaw to hide her shakiness; it didn’t quite work.

“Okay. Hold up here for a minute.” Dean grabbed her arm. “As much as I prefer blazes of glory, we can’t go in there without a plan.”

“You came to Carthage without a plan?”

Dean looked skyward for patience, wondering how she could manage to sass him even in the most dire of circumstances.

“We could go with the original plan if you want. We’re short a couple of angels, but hell, what’s a little risk amongst friends?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry. I’m just…” She gritted her teeth and stomped her boots on the ground, a staccato two-step. “I’m just having a little trouble.”

He accepted the explanation without asking questions. Looking back at the school building, he let the gears in his head spin logistics. Assuming Famine had been slurping up demons in this version of 2009, exorcism would still be the way to weaken him. Only this time exorcism could happen without Sam ingesting demon blood. A small-town elementary school had many rooms, tons of books and motivational posters, but more importantly, it had a PA system. If Jo could break into the office and get into the PA system and he could find Famine on the security cameras in the building, they might just stand a chance.

He relayed the information to her, framing it as a question rather than a stated plan.

“You make it sound easy,” Jo replied.

“It could be easy.” Dean shrugged. “I've gone into situations with worse plans and come out alive.”

“Works for me.”

The building stood unguarded, a testament to Lucifer's confidence. He had not counted on chasing Gabriel around the cosmos, Castiel challenging a street demon, or his Hellhounds taking concentrated salt shots through the head.

They moved together to the door, a red-frame swing handle, left invitingly unlocked. The front lobby sprawled in front of them with cheerful forest animals on bulletin boards, a few cozy chairs, and a glass-front office on the right. Jo pointed.

“That’s it. Damn, every elementary school looks the same.” Her hushed voice still reverberated in the silent space.

“You have no idea.” Dean almost irrationally chuckled. He had attended more elementary schools for a week here and a week there than he could count.

The inside of the office itself had the stacked desks of two secretaries, and Dean absently picked up a picture frame on one of them. He silently hoped that the woman in the picture had not shot those four children in her famine for a few minutes of peace and quiet. He saw the tangled black buttons and wires of a sound system on the wall but then glanced back at the glass wall behind them. In small-town Missouri, he was pretty sure the glass wasn’t even bulletproof, let alone demon resistant.

“Into the principal’s office with you, Jo Harvelle,” Dean said, an inappropriate flash of thoughts jumping through his mind.

“Shut up.”

He grinned and located the door, tucked in the back behind the nurse’s office. Unlike the school itself, the office was locked by its last conscientious occupant. He knelt down and put his hand into the inside of his jacket for his lock-pick. His fingers wiggled over a few odds and ends but couldn’t find the object in question.

“Here.” Jo passed him her lock-pick over his shoulder. That soft spot in the center of his chest warmed, blossoming with something unknown.

“Thanks.”

He set to work, his father's voice in his head guiding his actions in gruff, unforgiving orders; Sam had been the better brother at B&Es, and John had always ridden Dean about his trouble with locks. This time, Dean made quick work of it. He led Jo into the office, and she closed the door behind them. The principal -- Farrah Michaels, according to her nameplate -- had no warmth in her office, none of the family photos and cheery wooden desk signs seen in the main office space. Two diplomas hung in frames on the wall, and the glass-top desk stood empty except for a few tidy office supplies. Behind the desk, though, stood the old school PA system hookup for her to make morning announcements.

Damn if Dean hadn’t really needed that stroke of luck. He saw no security cameras, but he would take what he could get.

“I guess we’ll stay on the phone with each other. You can’t start the exorcism until I find Famine. That’s got to be our back pocket move.” His stomach fluttered at the thought of walking out of this room alone to face a Horseman of the Apocalypse. Jo’s face seemed to flicker the same thoughts.

“But hey, once I find him, you better exorcise the shit of him, and we’d better hope that we’re right about him slurping down demons. If we’re wrong…” He grinned a grin he didn’t feel. “Well, then don’t let anyone play Tom Petty at my funeral.”

“I like Tom Petty.” She bit her lower lip, almost smiling.

“You would,” he replied, and then she did smile, the expression sneaking out of her restraint and lighting her up. Her hands were still shaking, her face still too pale, her insides probably still quaking with uncontrollable hungers, but that smile made her face beautiful anyway. The warmth in his chest expanded again, threatening to crack his ribs if he didn’t do something about it.

“Look, Jo.” He emptied his hands of weapons, setting them on the desk. “I was an asshole. You can sleep with whoever you want, and instead of saying anything like I said, I should have just been appreciating the fact that you picked me.”

“Are you being sarcastic?” Her eyes were guarded.

He took a deep breath. He needed to do better. Just in case.

“No. I’m being serious. I was a dick, but you were wrong about why. It’s not that I don’t see you as a hunter. Hell, the day I met you, you shoved a shotgun into my kidneys and punched me in the nose. You’re awesome. I know I screwed up our first date--”

“Not all of it,” she interrupted. He reached into the pocket of his jacket, and though he had fumbled to find a lock-pick, he grabbed her note in one try. He pulled it out and unfolded it, holding it up for her to see. Recognition flickered through her eyes, and then her eyes brightened, a mist forming there that he knew better than to acknowledge. He kept talking.

“But if we live through this, I’ll do better on the next one. If we get time, I’ll use it to get this…” He motioned between them. “I’ll use it to get this right.”

He saw the flicker of emotions across her face, the brightest of which was hope. Jo’s mouth actually quivered as she answered after a few long seconds.

“I don’t want to say anything stupid. Famine might get in the way of me keeping my self-respect.”

“You and that damn self-respect…” Dean shook his head. 

This time, she was the one who kept talking, ignoring his comment. 

“I want to get this right too.”

“Okay.” Somehow one word held the weight of a thousand unspoken promises.

They stepped toward each other at the same moment, filling the space together, and he kissed her with a desperation he didn’t realize he felt. She held his face in her hands, stretching up to his mouth, and he gathered her up to him. He took in the feel of her in the circle of his arms, her thin, wiry strength and her soft, hungry kiss, and he memorized her. Just in case. He licked the cupid’s bow curve of her mouth, tasted the sweetness and the tang of fear, and then she let go first. He recognized the effort that cost her and stepped back as well.

He picked up the sawed-off. She picked up the salt.

“Kick it in the ass, Dean.”

He gave her a casual salute and headed out the door.


	10. The last time that I saw

Shotgun in hand, cell phone open as a walkie-talkie in the front cargo pocket of his jacket, Dean cursed elementary schools for not having maps on the walls, probably thanks to human horrors like school shooters. He knew that individual rooms would have fire routes on the wall, but when he tried the first door on his path, the handle didn't budge. The individual classrooms were locked. He had headed right for the center of the school building but instead of a cafeteria, he had found the empty auditorium. His gut told him Famine would be in the cafeteria, thriving on places of consumption. He crossed the auditorium through the double doors on the other side.

“Jo, can you hear me? Is there a school handbook in that office anywhere? I need to find the cafeteria.”

“Let me look.” He heard a staticky shuffle accompany her muffled voice. The poeticism of her voice speaking to him from a pocket over his heart came to mind and then irritated him. He looked down to check his gun.

“Found one! Where are you now?”

He looked at the classrooms around him; gaudy door designs smiled out from every angle, a visual cacophony of pattern and color. The backdrop was so inappropriate for the mission that it jarred him.

“Other side of the auditorium, passing some classrooms. Did you know Mrs. Kauffman is ‘beary’ excited to see her third grade forest friends?”

“Nope.” Jo’s voice sounded like a guitar string pulled too taut to vibrate. “You need to head down that hallway and swing a left. The cafeteria has its own exterior entrance on that far side of the school.”

“For the dumpsters. That makes sense. Thanks.”

His stride changed at the sudden reality of knowing where he was going, his boots falling a little softer now. The involuntary rush of adrenaline flooded from his glands, tipped off that it was go time. It thrummed familiarly in his veins, and for yet another time today, he thought of his father, hearing John Winchester's steady instructions in his head: "Focus on your breathing and the task. Inhale. Act. Exhale. Act. Nothing else. There's no room for anything else." Other voices came and went, but his father's voice narrated his hunting day in and day out. He had not always been a great father, but he had been an incredible hunter.

“Hey Dean?” Jo's voice thrummed with fear, turning his name into a request, and he forced it not to throw off his breathing, continuing his breaths and steps in sequence. She continued. “Do what you’ve got to do to come home to me.”

His heart squeezed in his chest; he knew the famine was talking, making her vulnerable in her craving for love and partnership, but that didn’t mean the sentiments weren’t real. Home. His whole life he had wanted a home, to cook in a real kitchen instead of eating something out of a mini-mart fridge, to see chairs in the same place he had left them, to have grass outside waiting on him to mow it. Jo had never had that either, but he recognized the same earnest desire in the way she said "home." For her, it was also a magic word. She would not say it lightly.

“I will.” 

He rounded the corner and saw two men standing guard at the cafeteria doors. Bingo. Their ramrod straight posture proved they were demons as much as the flicker of black in their eyes; Famine was not affecting them. Their mouths twisted into matching sneers when they spotted him.

“Dean Winchester comes alone to stop the Apocalypse,” one of them chirped. He ignored a lock of his youthful body's curly hair as it fell over his eye.

“This is even more pitiful than I expected,” the other echoed. 

They moved forward in a rush, but Dean did not give them the anticipated fight. He threw a couple punches, squeezed out a round of salt shot, but his focus was simply on getting into the cafeteria so the plan could begin. It was game time, and he was ready to enter the stadium. They closed their hands on his arms, the powerful grip bruising him through his jacket.

Dean ducked his head down and spoke to the open phone in his pocket before the demons on either side jerked him back upright.

“Go ahead, Jo.”

He thought he heard muffled affirmation before the demon pulled the phone out of his pocket. It looked at the screen, broke it half, and thew the pieces away.

"No one's coming for you, Winchester," it growled. 

With no direct line to her, Dean would just have to trust that Jo knew what to do. The demons threw open the cafeteria doors and dragged him inside.

Bodies littered the red and white tiled floor, human waste from demonic possession, but enough demons still had their meatsuits on, standing at attention around the mechanized wheelchair. A few unpossessed humans knelt on the floor at the back of the cafeteria. Dean saw the steady movement of their hands back and forth to their mouths, grabbing any pieces of spilled food they could grasp. Their glazed inhuman eyes turned his stomach.

Gripped tight between his two captors, Dean laid eyes on Famine again. This time memory had failed him. He had remembered Famine as a haggard old man, but his recollection had dropped the worst of the creature. As he was dragged closer to the Horseman, Dean saw more of the grotesque detail: a trail of thick, viscous saliva hanging from the mouth, yellow inch long fingernails, deep carved wrinkles over every inch of his skin. The creature bared his greying teeth in an almost smile.

“Welcome to my America, young man.” The oxygen tubes feeding into his nose moved as he spoke.

“One big TLC fat people special all the time,” Dean agreed. His eyes locked on the black and silver ring on the creature's hand.

“It's a supersized world. I'm just giving people what they want, what they hunger for. I'm feeding my sheep.” Famine's aged mouth wrapped around the words, luxuriating in the syllables of the word hunger. He pushed the lever on the arm of his wheelchair to move closer, and Dean struggled involuntarily against the hands that gripped him. He could not control his bodily response to the being; he felt dull panic, not hearing anything over the speakers, not seeing any way to get out of the grips into which he had fallen.

Famine stopped in front of him, rheumy eyes searching Dean's face.

“How do you stand in my presence?” Famine leaned forward and sniffed hard. “Angels. You have their stench all over you. No matter. I have not had to do this the old-fashioned way in a long time. There's a pleasure in that too.”

A bony, claw-like hand extended to touch Dean's abdomen.

Dean felt desperate hunger rise up from the center of his body, radiating out through every individual cell, filling each with famine, and then continuing its march. Everything flashed through his mind, everything he had tried to suppress.

Lisa and Ben in the hospital, clinging to one another's hands; Castiel juiced on souls and destroying the world; Ellen kneeling down beside a bloodied Jo to say goodbye; Sam shooting at nothing, unable to discern reality from hallucination; black Leviathans racing their way across the waters...

He had to stop it. He would do anything to stop it all. He would slit throats, carve initials in spleens, drain blood. He would sacrifice anyone on the altar of safety for his family.

He wanted their safety above all else. The world could burn as long as his loved ones got to live.

“You're not supposed to be here.” Famine spoke with hushed recognition. Dean could not concentrate on the danger of the Horseman knowing his time travel; all he could feel was his desperation. The fear paralyzed him.

“I admire you though. Your secret desire is not so different from your open action. That shows strength of character. That is what the Almighty desired from his creations when he made the decision to populate the Earth. It doesn't matter though. You cannot stop me.”

Suddenly the PA system crackled to life and through buzzing, popping static, Jo's voice rang out.

“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas...”

Famine let go of Dean and looked up at the ceiling. His eyes narrowed.

“What do I care for the sanctity of a few demons? Exorcise them. I do not care.”

The vessels all around them began to twitch. Their mouths contorted, choked gasps from their mouths, as the exorcism droned on around them. Jo did not falter, did not hesitate, and when she reached the end, heads dropped back and black smoke roared out. The hands on either side of Dean released him, and he fell to his knees between the bodies.

Famine did not flinch.

But neither did Jo stop. She began again, galloping through the exorcism. This time, Famine froze. He put his hand to his chest. His splayed fingers wiggled. Something below the flesh burbled.

Dean watched as Famine's mouth lurched open, and smoke began to roll out. First, it moved in tendrils, but it expanded rapidly, until billows of black poured from the body.

The paralysis held Dean still. His mind trapped his own body.

Then he heard Jo gamely carry on, repeating the exorcism once again, leaving nothing to chance. He gritted his teeth, let the barrage of fears batter itself against him, and rose to his feet. The smoke roared all around him, blinding him, filling his nose and mouth, choking him. He reached a shaking hand into his jacket and pulled out his knife.

Dean grabbed out, closing Famine's bony, wrinkled digits into his own, and then he slashed. He slammed the knife down.

With the ferocity of a man with nothing to lose, he struck out again and again. He heard a terrible, guttural howl, but he did not stop, not even when he felt the fear begin to dissipate, racing from his extremities back to his core. He slashed and stabbed until the smoke around him cleared, leaving only an empty wheelchair and the engraved silver circle on the ground beside it. Famine was gone.

Dean stretched to grab the ring and then sank down amidst the bodies.

The score: Dean Winchester: 2, Horsemen of the Apocalypse: 0.

\-----------------------

When he walked back into the principal's office, Jo was still reciting the exorcism, voice hoarse and eyes dull. At the sound of the doorknob, she picked up her gun but did not stop the recitation until her brain recognized it was him. Her eyes brightened. All alone, salted into the office, she had kept going until she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt he was safe. His throat tightened unexpectedly. 

He met her gaze and reached into his pocket to hold up the ring. The ugly creepy piece of metal felt like a victory trophy.

He thought she would breathe out a sigh of relief, say something, keep professional and prove to him she was a big, tough hunter, but instead, she set the gun down and ran to him. He supposed she knew she had already proven herself. She slammed into his arms, 120 pounds of relief careening into him hard enough to throw him off-balance. The bruises, the unspeakable exhaustion, and the hollow post-adrenaline faded away for a moment. He held her tight, lowered his nose into her hair and breathed in her scent before letting her go. 

“We got that son of a bitch.” Dean heard the smile in his own voice.

“Damn straight.” She grinned back at him. 

“Let’s get Sam and get the hell out of here.” 

Long habit took over as they kicked out the salt line and walked out of the school, still armed to the teeth, guns still in hand. The picture they cut against the empty street was the same as earlier, but the little details altered it entirely. Their steps had new buoyancy, their silence was a peaceful optimism, and their straight mouths meant pride, not fear. Going into a possible suicide mission closed the door to the future, but they had just kicked it wide open again. Damn, if it didn't feel freakin' good.

When they reached the hardware store, Dean took a half-step ahead to grab the knob and open the door for Jo. She smiled her gratitude.

“Dean.” Castiel’s voice rumbled out its traditional greeting from the back. The angel sat beside Sam, legs extended in front of him, trench coat billowed out around him. Dean tried to remember if he had ever seen Cas sit down this way before; the position was so human. He supposed it made sense under the circumstances. Cas didn’t have enough juice to zap them anywhere. Hell, he didn’t even have enough to heal a broken leg; he might as well just sit on the floor and wait. _Just a baby in a trench coat,_ Dean remembered saying once, in a time about two years from now.

“You got the ring,” Cas said it as fact. “I can feel the change in the air.”

“There’s a disturbance in the force,” Jo muttered from behind him. Dean stifled the urge to turn around and lay one on her just for making a _Star Wars_ reference.

“Yeah. I guess we can put one in the Win column. Did you put a bright shiny smiting through Meg?”

“The demon got away.” Cas looked down momentarily. “I am not at full capacity.”

“It’s alright. Any word on angel radio from your big brother?”

“I’m assuming you mean Gabriel. No. He must still be with Lucifer.”

“We got a call from Bobby though,” Sam spoke up now. Dean noticed now that Sam’s hands were still pressed against the rags on his leg, holding in his blood and bone fragments with sheer determination. His face was drawn, pale, but steady. Sam looked at Jo when he spoke.

“Ellen and Rufus are going to be okay. He got them to a hospital in time. They’re pumping them out and cussing Bobby up and down for being stupid enough to let his friends drink like that.” The corner of Sam’s mouth tilted up. “But they’re going to be okay.”

“Thank God.” Jo breathed the words out in a sigh of relief.

Dean looked around the room and considered what they should do next. He could rally them as a group and start them out of here: Sam slung between him and Cas, Jo responsible for shooting any residual demons who got in their way. Maybe they could hotwire one of the abandoned cars before the town’s citizens started to emerge from their shock. They could drive Sam to a hospital, begin the awkward process of explaining inexplicable injuries to concerned doctors and nurses.

Or maybe the answer was even simpler than that. Maybe they needed to do for Gabriel just what Cas had done for them: wait. 

“Well, I don’t know about you crazy kids, but I’m going to sit my ass down and unless something big, bad, and scary busts through that door, I’m going to wait for our angelic getaway driver to show up.”

“Seriously?” He followed Jo’s voice over to her raised eyebrows.

“Listen, you do whatever you want, Daphne, but I’m going to sit here with Shaggy and Scooby.” Dean eased himself down onto the floor beside his brother, using Sam’s shoulder as a brace to slow his descent. 

“You think you’re Fred?” Sam replied. 

“Fred owns the cool car and always drives. Yes, I’m Fred.”

Jo sat down beside Dean. “I always liked Velma better myself.”

“Trust me, babe. Daphne’s the hot chick. You’re a Daphne.” The sheer cheese of the line should have made him wince but instead, it made both of them smile. Even Sam could not stifle a bit of a grin. Dean slung an arm over Jo’s shoulders and pulled her closer. She leaned into him and lit up his insides with fireworks and whiskey.

In the quiet moments that followed, Dean let his mind wander. Jo rested against him, head on his shoulder; Sam kept pressure on his own leg but relaxed beside him; and Castiel sat unnaturally still, listening to angel radio and apparently finding nothing of concern on its wavelength. Ellen and Rufus were in a hospital a town away, probably on IVs of fluids and hopefully cussing Bobby up and down for not busting them out to come help.

Everyone was alive. Everyone was sane. And he had the rings of two Horsemen of the Apocalypse in hand. 

For the first time in years, Dean thought about the things that were for normal people, things that suddenly seemed possible. What if he stopped the Apocalypse -- all hands still on deck? Their lives could be so different -- no soulless Sam, no Leviathans. The images flickered through his head, embarrassing in their optimism. Jo in his passenger seat, head tilted back as she sang Blue Oyster Cult; Castiel popping in at Bobby’s while Dean and Jo cooked breakfast; clearing a simple ghost case with Sam, saving people together; and maybe, just maybe, waking up next to a beautiful woman in a shared home with a yard, a garage for his car. Maybe Sam could have a dog.

A stupid sentimental lump tightened in his throat. 

He might be able to have a better life than he had ever thought possible. He might be happy.

Gabriel appeared in a poof of sparkly white smoke, an unusual sprinkle of good fortune added to this tiny stretch of luck.

“Somebody made the Devil so darn mad that he decided to get out of Missouri. Might be headed down to Georgia.” Gabriel wore his smarmy grin, but he had his eyes on Dean. There was genuine gratitude and appreciation there. “Ready to get out of here and regroup for Round 3?”

Dean closed his hand around Jo's to help her up as he stood.

Then the world around him folded into darkness as if someone had slammed the lid shut on a box.


	11. Where the Joshua Tree grows

The strands of time tugged at Ma’at like a child’s insistent hands on her apron strings. She reached into their magic, plucking through them until she found the culprit. Dean Winchester had tipped the balance. He had made the changes necessary to reshape his future. A smile curved on her lips as success thrilled across her body.

Judeo-Christian time was so limited. Their God, the true Creator, had constrained it, adding rules like paradox and inevitability. He never allowed his angels to change reality in the past. Of course, Egyptians had recognized time more logically: a rope woven with millions of interconnected, malleable strands, infinite behind and not yet crafted ahead. It could be changed and reworked. Nothing was carved in stone.

She set to work repositioning the strands before pulling him back to his present. Examination of the changes intrigued her. The shifts represented his heart’s wishes: the young woman’s safety, his brother’s sanity, his angel’s life. Yet they also represented wide departures from the future he had known and perhaps departures from the future for which he would have hoped. Life looped and spun and formed beyond human understanding. Judeo-Christian culture even had its own saying for this: The Lord works in mysterious ways.

As she drew Dean closer to the now, the world around her swirled in conjunction with the changes, his future literally reshaping before her eyes. By the time she reached Dean’s new present, Ma’at stood on faded, thirsty grass under a blinking motel sign. The sun hung suspended overhead, a perfect circle in a cloudless blue sky, and she tilted her head up to it. The mortal certainly had a beautiful day to greet him.

She lifted him to the physical. He appeared on the ground in front of her, shock and nausea written on his features and his aura. He looked healthier than when she had sent him back, his sickly pallor and shaved face turned to tanned skin and scruff.

“What the hell?” He looked around in confusion, but when he saw her, he froze. “What am I doing here? Where the hell am I?”

Sympathy for his agitation passed over her, and she released it. Her brother’s recklessness may have given her duty towards this human, but that did not mean she had to tolerate disrespect. He was but an ant beneath her. Like the ant, he would do well to recognize the tremorous vibrations of his superiors and scurry out of the way in deference.

“You are back in your own time. You made the adjustments necessary to change your future. You saved Jo.”

“I’m back? I didn’t think…” 

“You thought I would send you back and leave you.” She did not wait for his fumbling attempt to explain his thoughts.

“Well, yeah.”

“No. Time does not work that way. One cannot stay indefinitely in the past.” She paused to wait for his gratitude. Worship and gratitude had little in common, but appreciation might be all she would be able to receive in this modern era. Dean did not move to thank her. She stiffened.

“You’ve got to send me back or something. I don’t even know what my life is like now or what I changed or anything. You can’t just drop me back off with a big black hole behind me I know nothing about.”

Another small stroke of sympathy moved over her. The limitations of human existence had to be painful to bear. Only in her most infinite loneliness, in her most aimless, homeless state, did she envy humans their small slices of existence. Most of the time, she moved through their world without letting it touch her, still a giant among ants, but right now, the concern on Dean Winchester’s face made her feel for him again.

She reached out for his hand as she had before, but this time he jerked it away.

“No. Don’t do that thing where you make me calm.”

Her hand moved back to her own side.

“Very well. This is goodbye, Dean Winchester. I hope I have offered appropriate compensation for my brother’s actions.”

“Hey, listen… You said Jo is alive?”

She nodded.

“Then thank you. I guess I can figure it out from here.”

“You are very welcome.”

Ma’at dipped into the magic inside of her and vanished, leaving Dean Winchester to do what he pleased with his new future.

She wished him luck, for she feared he would need it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my wonderful beta, quill.is.mightier, and the lovely kuwlshadow for her beautiful piece of artwork to serve as the cover for the fic. 
> 
> If you have enjoyed this story, you should know that it is Part I of a two-part series. After all, Dean and Jo's story is not over. **If you are interested in reading Part II, you should subscribe to the series to get updates when I begin posting it.**
> 
> Thank you for taking the time to read!


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